Bakura's Vacation
by NorthernTrash-x
Summary: Malik/Ryou, Marik/Bakura. Malik, Marik and Ryou decide Bakura needs a holiday, and they don't like doing things by halves. Don't worry though- they won't be footing the bill.
1. Prologue

_Authorial Comment_

_By the end of this, Seto Kaiba fan girls and Duke Devlin fan girls are going to hate me. But don't take it the wrong way- they are two of my favourite Yu-Gi-Oh guys, but everyone needs some fun poked at them now and again._

_Besides, it's just the way the story is. It's almost written itself, which is a strange feeling. _

_I think my subconscious had a lot to do with this story._

_So, it should be obvious that this is a completely stupid piece of writing._

_But whatever._

_WARNING: OOC. __**Severely.**_

_Psychoshipping and Angstshipping_

_Oh, and in this the yamis are Bakura and Marik, and the hikaris are Ryou and Malik. _

---

**Bakura's Vacation**

**Prologue**

Domino was a far cry from Egypt, and Malik knew it. He groaned as he opened his eyes and heard the steady, persistent beat of the rain on his bedroom window. He shivered, and snuggled down under the duvet.

In the room across the hall, Bakura felt similar feelings when he woke up to hear the rain. As far as he was concerned, rain could go to the shadow realm, along with alarm clocks. Unfortunately for Bakura, he hadn't quite worked out how to send rain to the shadow realm, which was probably just as well for the rest of the world.

Bakura sat up in bed and stretched, but not for long, because he was almost immediately shivering. He dived back under the covers, finding warmth from the body next to him, who been woken up by Bakura as he stretched.

Marik wrapped an arm loosely around Bakura, and the two went slowly back to sleep, the cold banished by their body heat.

It was Ryou who got up first, as usual. He was the only one not really affected by the cold, and he always got up first to go downstairs in whatever he wore to sleep in to switch the heating on so the house was warm when the others were ready to rise up from sleep.

He was a considerate boy like that.

When questioned as to why he didn't feel the cold, he simply smiled and reminded them that he was British, therefore used to bad weather, since it was the main type of weather around in the country.

As the house slowly warmed up, Ryou padded back upstairs to get dressed. The others had often been perplexed by Ryou's sleeping garments. He'd wear anything from oversized shirts to cotton tracksuit bottoms, which wasn't that unusual, but where he'd got any of them was a mystery. None of them had ever seen him buy any, yet more and more appeared in his draw. The shirts were so big they trailed around his knees, and a personal favourite of Malik's was the bright green occupational therapy one that read 'a human being is a human doing'.

But back to Ryou.

Now he had changed, he went to cook breakfast.

Now, please don't be under the impression that the others used Ryou as some form of slave labour- yeah, he cooked and turned the heating on and did most of the cleaning, but it was voluntary, for the sake of the house's survival and his own sanity.

Have you ever seen Bakura try to clean? Things end up on fire. Have you ever seen Marik cook? Walls get covered in things of such a strange consistency that Ryou really didn't want to know what it was (although, according to Marik, he had been making omelette). And don't get me started on Malik. Sure he could dismantle a motorbike engine, but try asking him to turn on the boiler? Things explode.

As he ambled past Malik's door, the blonde opened it, still in the grey cotton tracksuit pants he wore to sleep in, his hair stuck up at all angles and his eyes still puffy from sleep.

He looked completely adorable.

Not that you'd tell him that.

Not many people would dare. Trying to take over the world gives you a reputation like that.

He grinned sleepily at Ryou, but the pair waited till they got downstairs before talking. Bakura was a light sleeper, and when awoken by noise he was never in a good mood.

The chatted softly in the kitchen whilst Ryou started cooking. Soon, woken by the smells coming from the kitchen, Marik and Bakura shuffled down, both of them wearing the trousers they wear in the day (Marik and Bakura didn't bother wearing clothes to bed- what was the point, they reasoned, when they were just going to get taken off anyway?).

As breakfast was made, a temporary feeling of serenity fell across the group. Bakura had his elbows on the table and was resting his head on his hands, a sleepy look gracing his face as he daydreamed. Marik was still partially asleep, leaning back on his chair with his eyes half closed, and Malik had his hands on the back of his head absentmindedly, watching Ryou, who was moving around the small kitchen with ease, singing under his breath.

"_If we took a holiday  
Took some time to celebrate  
Just one day out of life  
It would be, it would be so nice"_

Ryou sung under his breath, the voice breathy and often lapsing into humming. It was a relaxing voice, not that the group needed to relax any more than they already were.

The spell of quiet was broken when the food was served.

Bakura tore into his food, using his hands, food flying across the table. Ryou sighed, sipping his tea. He'd never succeeded in teaching Bakura table manners. Malik ate slowly and neatly, but without the grace that Ryou did. The grace came from proper British table manners. Marik knawed at his food like a caged animal, spearing it violently as if it was going to escape.

Ryou sighed.

Just another morning in the Bakura-Ishtar household.


	2. Chapter One: Destination Unknown

Chapter One

Domino City

Duke Devlin, rain and the 'happy-crew'

Bakura sighed. It didn't matter how many people he stole from, how many old women he scared, how many squirrels he fed poisoned seed to, he still couldn't get over the fact that he didn't have a birthday.

Well, obviously he must have had a birthday at one point or another, but the fact was that as much as he liked to deny it, he was several thousand years old, and after a while, you do start to forget things. Normally small things, but after aeons of time with nothing to mark the days in the Millennium Ring, birthdays seemed pretty insignificant, to be honest.

He sighed again, the beginning of a headache starting in his temples, and looked up to take stock of where he was. It was Ryou's talk of Yugi's forthcoming birthday that had set him off, and, annoyed and depressed, he had gone for a walk. He realised that he must have wandered all over town, and, glancing at his watch, which was technically not his at all, he realised that he had been doing it for a while as well. He had been so lost in thought that he had wandered nearly all the way to the Kame Game shop.

He mentally groaned, knowing that the quickest way home from where he was would involve going past the shop, and every time he passed by its large glass windows he'd be hugged by an overly-happy Yugi, and glared at by his over-protective yami.

Normally he'd do it just to antagonise the Pharaoh, but today he really wasn't in the mood. However, it would take an hour to get home any other way, but it was only twenty-or-so minutes by walking past the shop and cutting through a few alleyways, and all he wanted to do right now was curl up in bed and sleep, preferably with Marik as a pillow.

And Bakura was not a patient person.

Gritting his teeth, he bowed his head and strode quickly towards the shop, hoping for once that his unusual hair wouldn't make him stand out in the small crowd of people on the streets.

The rain was really hammering down now, and it had only just been spitting when Bakura left. He didn't really mind, though. The downpour had made everyone put up umbrellas, but it rolled down Bakura's face in small streams. It rolled down the streets as well, forming little rivers in the gutters that coursed down to small lakes as they hit the blocked drains at the corner of a road. The fall made the world look grey, but not unpleasant, Bakura mused. He didn't like the rain- he had decided long ago that if something wasn't in Egypt, then there was no need for it to exist. However, it had it's advantages, such as the fact that everyone was hurrying through the streets and not paying attention to him. And right now, he would look a lot less suspicious with the collar of his long black coat pulled up. He wandered closer to the shop.

Past the first set of windows, past the door, and just as he was breathing a long sigh of relief at escaping, he heard his name called out in a high pitched voice that extended every syllable to the largest possible degree.

"Bakura!"

He groaned. Not only did he have to contend with Yugi and the Ra-damned Pharaoh, but the whole little 'happy crew', as he, Marik and Malik had dubbed them, were there, huddled cheerfully under large, brightly coloured umbrellas. Joey, his hair looking even messier than usual from the rain was standing just in front of his squeaky sister, whose name none of them had ever bothered remembering who was trying to hide behind her brother. Tristan was there, staring at said sister, and the friendship girl, who seemed to exist solely for the purpose of annoying him, staring first at the Pharaoh, then at Yugi, then at Bakura again.

"Bakura," Yugi said in his six-year-old on sugar voice, "come in and watch a movie with us?"

Bakura mentally growled and declined their offer, although for a moment he was tempted just by the appalled look on the Pharaoh's face. Normally, he might have come in just for a few minutes just to antagonise his nemesis. However, his headache was worsening, and he stormed away from the happy crew, almost immediately turning into an alleyway that most people would be too terrified to enter. Bakura wasn't worried though.

In fact he barely gave it a thought, since he was the reason most people should scared.

'_Idiots,'_ he mused.

He was surprised when he arrived outside their home, since nobody seemed to be there, because there was no lights were on. He picked the lock (before you ask, he'd always had a major aversion to keys and refused to carry one, since he could open most locks in seconds. He wasn't called 'thief king' for nothing.) He looked around the house, just to be sure, but he was right. He sighed, dejected. The house just wasn't as nice when they weren't all there.

Without Malik there was no music drifting through every room of the house, ranging from the heaviest metal to classical. He always did have a strange taste, did that boy.

Without Ryou there was no smells of cooking from the kitchen. He could cook most things well, and since he was the only one of them that was even able to make toast without setting something on fire, it had been his job since the start to make food.

And without Marik, the empty house just made him feel lonely. He couldn't hear the sound of the television being switched off as he came through the door, the sound of quick, light footsteps as he took off his shoes and the feel of his partner's arms around his waist.

Bakura mentally pouted. Where were they?

He wandered into the bathroom and grabbed some paracetamol from the bathroom cabinet. He dry-swallowed them, and wandered through to the room he shared with Marik. He threw himself down, and just as he was drifting off to sleep, still fully dressed, on top of the duvet he heard the door bang and footsteps come flying down the hall.

The door was thrown open, and Bakura could see his hikari standing there, looking very pleased with himself, with a slightly maniacal glint in his eyes that Bakura had only ever seen in the mirror as he looked at himself.

That was enough to worry the yami.

"Come on, get up! You need to go!"

Bakura blinked.

"Go? Go where?"

Ryou stared at him like he was an idiot.

"You need to come get your present, of course."

That got Bakura's attention. If there was anything that interested the thief, it was the prospect of something free.

They hurried out of the building, and into a waiting limousine.

"Err… Ryou?"

"Mmm?"

"Since when did we get a limo?"

Ryou only grinned, and told the driver to do what he does well, and go already. They drove through the streets of Domino, Ryou just smiling at every question Bakura shot at him, until they ended up at the executive entrance of Domino Airport. By this point, Bakura was extremely confused- they hadn't bought him an _airport_, had they?

Walking through the quiet corridors, the pair soon came to a small lounge, where Marik and Malik were engaged in conversation with a man who appeared to spend far too much time on his long, black hair and far too much money on dice accessories.

Duke Devlin.

The man turned around and flashed one of his most charming smiles at the newcomers.

"Ryou! Bakura! Two of my favourite yami and hikari! How do you both do?"

As the two white-haired males replied, Marik couldn't help but whisper into Malik's ear.

"Is it just me, or does he seem a little too friendly with our little Ryou?"

Marik blinked, then flushed.

"What does it matter? Who ever Devlin decides to hit on is no concern of mine."

Marik just nodded, and grinned to himself.

Bakura was still completely confused. What was he doing here? Why was dice-boy here? What in Ra's name was his suitcase doing over there? And why did he have a sneaking suspicion that this was all Ryou's idea? The so called 'light' was much more devious than he first appeared.

Upon voicing all these questions, he found brown arms slung around his waist as Marik hugged him from behind.

"Ah, darling Bakura, worry not! We have arranged it all, so fear not for the future!" Marik exclaimed.

Bakura stared at him, slightly worried.

"You arranged it, and I'm supposed to feel safe?"

Marik gave him a hurt look, complete with a pout, until Bakura buckled and turned round to nuzzle his ear, whispering that '_of course he trusted him'_.

Behind them, Ryou coughed. They paid no attention, and Ryou sighed despondently. Malik and Duke both noticed this, and almost simultaneously pulled the couple apart roughly.

Ryou coughed again.

"We noticed how upset you were, so we decided to take you on holiday. And it just so happened that Mr Devlin here owes Malik a rather large favour-"

"-So I am lending you my private plane and complimentary rooms at each of my hotels."

'_Not really'_ reflected Bakura.

Bakura appraised Duke, looking him up and down with a look of disinterest.

"So when did you get so rich? Please don't tell me that because of Dungeon Dice Monsters you got so much money you decided to branch into the tourist trade, 'cause that's almost as unoriginal as me trying to steal something."

"That's right!" Duke smiled, his chest swelling slightly with pride.

Bakura looked him up and down, noting the designer labels on Dukes clothes.

"So, about where you live. Is there much security around your prized posses-"

Bakura was broken of as his hikari grabbed his ear and twisted, smiling angelically at Duke, in apology. Duke smirked back, whilst Bakura writhed in pain.

"Oh my," muttered Marik to his hikari, "should we interfere?"

"Yes," came the angry response.

Marik looked up in surprise, but his light was not looking at Bakura, it was flicking between the angelic-looking Ryou and the smirking Devlin.

Marik grinned. Something more to add to his theory. Bakura really was going to owe him a lot of money after losing this particular bet.

Duke Devlin walked them to the boarding lounge, and instructed them to take very good care of his jet, staring mainly at Bakura and Marik as he said this, who, to their credit, managed to keep very innocent looks on their faces the whole time.

Duke left after slipping Ryou a dazzling smile and his number, leaving the four to board, which they did, Marik and Bakura with linked arms, Ryou looking slightly confused, and Malik with a scowl on his face, severely wishing he still had the Millennium Rod so could do some real damage to 'dice-boy'.

---

Please review! The next chapter will be up a.s.a.p.

Thanks to all.


	3. Chapter Two: Sydney

Chapter Two

Sydney

Boats, black-outs and the plushies of doom

_On the jet_

The inside of the jet was just as Ryou had expected- extravagant to the extreme, but almost flawlessly tasteful. The 'almost' was due to one thing, which was the large, unframed mirror that was fastened securely on one wall. It is to be noted that the mirror itself was not distasteful- it was the oversized, fluffy dice that surrounded it that made it objectionable, especially since the dice were not only in the traditional black and white colours, but in pink and red, blue and green and an exceptionally vile yellow and purple.

Marik snickered when he saw the mirror.

"Seems Devlin likes to be surrounded by dice almost as he likes looking at hims-"

Marik was cut off from his insult by a well-timed rucksack hitting the back of his head. He turned round to glare at Ryou, who was watching him with one eyebrow raised.

"No need to insult the guy, he is lending us his plane, after all. Plus, you don't exactly spend minimal time in front of the mirror every morning, either."

Malik, listening to the whole affray, sighed inwardly as he tuned out of the argument. He had no wish to listen to Ryou sticking up for Devlin. Instead, he turned to examine the plane, as now they were safely in the air they were free to walk around, although just how safe he was on a plane shared with Bakura and Marik he would never know.

Three banks of two seats occupied most of the space in this first room, and at the back of the room was the aforementioned mirror and dice combination. On either side was a door, one of which Bakura was already opening, bored of the argument ensuing. It turned out to be a bathroom, and although it was not nearly as extravagant as the first room, with its walnut panelling and plush carpet, it was still a hell of a lot better than most bathrooms he'd seen, and those included the ones on Kaiba's blimp.

Malik opened the second room and stopped in the doorway, his jaw slack and mouth open. Bakura nudged past him, only to stop in horror as well.

In the room was a large bed, covered in pale blue silk sheets and a vast amount of blue pillows, a lot of which, Malik noted, were shaped like hearts. It wasn't the bed, not even the large mirror fixed on the ceiling above it that made them stop, however.

It was the hundreds, and I mean _hundreds _of plushies and soft toys that did that.

The silence was eventually broken by a muted and shocked "Oh my…" from Ryou, and Malik jumped. He hadn't noticed that Ryou had come up just behind him, and was peering over his shoulder at the plushie filled room.

All of a sudden, there was a loud squeal of happiness. Ryou and Malik were knocked over by a blur of blonde, and fell, Ryou on top of Malik. They both blushed furiously, and Ryou bounded up quickly with all the hidden athleticism of a gymnast, a fact which was dually noted by Malik.

Moving back to the doorway they found what was quite possibly the most peculiar thing any of them had seen, although they had both seen quite a few strange things over the years.

Marik was sat amongst the plushies and soft toys on the floor, hugging a yellow teddy bear to his chest with his eyes closed and a massive beam radiating from his face, the picture of perfect childish glee.

Bakura, however, had sunk to his knees, resting his elbows on them and his face in his hands. He was rocking to and fro slowly, and moaning to himself. It took Ryou several minutes to realise that Bakura was repeating _'the plushies of doom'_ to himself, and moments later he realised why.

Marik dropped the teddy bear. Then, at almost super-sonic speeds, he dove across the room, jumping from one thing to another, stopping and dropping his lasted find in favour of a new one in seconds.

Plushies and soft toys flew through the air in streams, hitting the two hikaris in the doorway with such forced that they were forced to retreat. An expensive bottle looking like what could have been aftershave but seemed to resemble women's perfume was knocked of a side table, and many were hitting Bakura, who was still sitting there, rocking.

Suddenly, the bedlam stopped.

"Bakura! I have a you-plushie! I didn't know they made them! I want one!" squealed Marik in a ridiculously feminine child's voice.

Bakura looked up, and it was indeed a 'Bakura-plushie'. He reached out for it, and examined the plushie briefly before handing it back to Marik.

"Baka. For one thing, its hand made, so you couldn't buy it. And for another, it's Ryou, not me. Check the eyes."

Marik did check, then nodded in agreement.

"You're right. Devlin didn't make a you-plushie; he just made a Ryou-plushie."

They blinked, then froze.

Malik, still standing in the doorway, found his fist clenching and a vein popping in anger on his forehead.

Ryou looked at the plushie, wide-eyed.

"Why di-"

"This is your pilot speaking. We are about to make a descent into Sydney, Australia, and I would ask you all to sit in your seats with your seatbelts on and your tray in the upright position until we land. Thank you."

Ryou blinked, then shrugged, turned around, and walked briskly back to his seat. The others soon followed, although nothing could part Marik from a hand-made 'Winged Dragon of Ra' plushie he'd found in what could no doubt be Duke's room.

Marik and Bakura settled in the back row of seats, even though Ryou was at the front. Ryou wasn't that bothered though- the constant noise the pair made was enough to drive anyone mad, and he was already starting to feel like this trip was more trouble than it was worth.

If anyone had asked Ryou, he would have said that if Malik even bothered coming on this trip, (and Ryou wouldn't have been surprised if he had refused) he would have sat on his own, in silence, as he was prone to do. So he was very surprised when Malik threw himself down on the seat next to Ryou.

Now, Malik was not unsociable, and neither did he despise the other three on the plane, (in fact, in his mind, they were held with very high esteem and respect and the only other people who were awarded such calibre were his siblings) but he was a quiet person, much more prone to thinking up ideas (only occasionally ones that would involve taking over the world- after all, he had given that up) than he was to talking.

But living with three people you like means a certain amount of civility even on days when you felt low, he had mused before agreeing to house-share, and to his surprise it had been very easy- he felt comfortable with them all, more comfortable than he had thought he would.

Bakura and Marik, he wasn't really bothered about. They had become so wrapped up with themselves they found even less time to bully him in a worryingly older-sibling way, and with Ryou's gentle persuasion, they had become friendly without wanting anything in return.

It had been Ryou he had been really worried about.

The boy was irresistible, to be fair, but Malik did find it rather harsh that someone could be so gorgeous, so good at cooking and so damned _nice_ in such an agreeable way, all at the same time.

Ryou was smiling at him, half laughing, as he waved a hand in front of his eyes. Malik blinked.

'_Shit. What was he saying?'_ "Erm, sorry, what?"

Ryou laughed, and Malik flushed.

"I asked if you knew what places we're going to, and then I asked if you always looked that gormless, or were you just pleased to see me?"

If it was possible, Malik flushed an even deeper red, before muttering that he had no idea where they were going, and that Marik had arranged that.

They both blinked in shock when they had realised they had left all the planning of the holiday to the craziest one among them. They exchanged horrified looks, and Malik awkwardly patted Ryou's shoulder in a comforting way.

_In Sydney_

The hotel was huge, Ryou couldn't help but notice. Huge, luxurious and tasteful. He watched a couple walk in as they checked in, and couldn't help but notice the diamond studded Rolex watch on the man, the mink fur on the woman, the gold bracelets on her thin, tanned arms and the heavy chain around the mans neck.

He turned away, scolding himself for staring. It wasn't like he could help it though- it was the thief king in him.

Damn reincarnation.

He turned his attention back towards Malik, who was arguing with the receptionist, who looked extremely tired- it was past twelve, to be fair.

"What do you mean, the penthouse suit? I'm not being put outside the hotel, dammit!"

Ryou groaned. Time to take over. Sometimes it was a burden living with three people so ignorant of the modern world, but, to be honest, it wasn't any of their faults. Bakura was from thousands of years ago, and Marik was only a few years old, technically (although the issue of Marik's age was often debated, since he had, at times, the innocence of a child and at others the homicidal tendencies of a fully grown psychopath). And then there was Malik. Sure he was from this era, the same age as Ryou, but growing up in a god-damned _hole _in the ground had limited his knowledge of modern technology and terminology somewhat.

After explaining that the penthouse was the best suite in the hotel, they made their way to it. They threw their bags in the lift, and Malik decided to walk the way up, because he still felt too awake to sleep.

Ryou wasn't sure if he knew it was the twelfth floor, although since it was Malik he probably wouldn't care.

He always did like to be difficult.

_The next day_

Marik stared, wide-eyed, at the huge yachts on the sea.

Bakura stared, open-mouthed, at the sea.

The sea, as it generally does, stared at no one.

Ryou warily eyed the sea gulls flying above them.

Malik tried his hardest no to stare at Ryou.

Malik was starting to wonder if this was the stupidest thing he had ever agreed to do.

But at least he got a chance to spend some time with Ryou.

The two Yami's seemed far more interested in the sea and the boats than anything else, so Ryou and Malik had taken a hour long walk along Darling Harbour, only to come back to find them in the same place, still staring. It was unnerving, to say the least. It took them nearly fifteen minutes to convince them to move, and even then they were beset with grumbling.

The grumbling stopped, however, when they were informed about what they were doing.

Bakura pointed at the huge bridge in front of them

"We're climbing _that_?"

When Ryou nodded he turned back, stared awe-stuck at it for a few moments, then turned back, grinning from ear to ear with glee.

Marik was slightly disappointed to find out that he couldn't scale the bridge hand-over-hand, but after the hour-long walk up to the top he decided that it was still decent.

And why such high praise from Marik?

The reasoning was, of course, the absolutely stunning view.

From the top of the bridge you could see all down the harbour, the huge yachts now small patches of white on the blue expanse of water. They could see across the harbour into the open sea, its waves much wilder than those in the harbour, and far more beautiful. They could see small islands, and small people wandering below them.

Absent-mindedly, as their fingers brushed, Bakura grabbed Marik's hand and held it in an uncommon act of tenderness. They moved closer together, savouring the beauty of Sydney below them.

Malik turned towards Ryou, the summer sun making his hair shine, his eyes wide with excitement and exhilaration, his cheeks slightly flushed from the long climb up. He grinned at the white-haired boy, before turning back to examining the scenery.

Ryou, however, found that he couldn't take his eyes of the blonde.


	4. Chapter Three: Las Vegas

_I know, I know. I haven't updated in too long. I'm sorry! Las Vegas did not want to be written… but here it is, a nice sized chapter to make up for your patient wait, and hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner than this one was. Nt-xx_

Chapter Three

Las Vegas

Casinos, foyer rides and the temptation of thieves

…

_On the plane_

"So let me get this straight? We are going, in the most ludicrous way possible, to try to cover every continent on this planet? And that's all they'll tell us?"

Malik nodded his head.

"And the pilot refuses to tell us specifically where we are going, and that includes the darn country itself, on Marik's orders?"

Malik nodded again.

"And we have entrusted this entire trip… to _Marik?_"

Malik groaned, and buried his head in his hands.

"We're doomed," he muttered under his breath. "Bloody doomed. Some days I wish I'd never come out of the hole."

Ryou sighed and massaged his temples. The plane started to descend through the air and make its steady progress down to Las Vegas- although neither of them knew it yet.

"We really didn't think this one through, did we?"

Meanwhile, a few rows back, Marik lay snuggled next to a sleeping Bakura. He knew they had thus far escaped jet lag, but he guessed from what people had told him (because of course he wouldn't know) that they would be feeling the effects now.

He closed his eyes and smiled, resting his head on the arm of his partner that was draped around his shoulders. He'd known that had to go to Las Vegas ever since he'd seen a woman on the television talking about it.

She's said it was a den of vice, the ultimate city of sin.

And that, Marik had decided, sounded exactly up their street.

The gentle smile on his face soon turned into a smirk.

'_The city of sin?' he thought, 'Here we come."_

---

**Later**

The hotel was nice, Malik had to admit. Very big, but elegant, and the outside of it screamed money. However, he thought that the blinking lights around the reception desk were a bit much, and by the glazed looks on the receptionists' faces, they agreed.

But, he could have lived with the lights.

It was the huge merry-go-round in the middle of the huge entrance hall that he thought was unnecessary, really.

'_I mean,'_ he thought, '_how many adults are actually going to want to go o-"_

He tailed off as someone tugged his sleeve. He turned to see the wide, pleading eyes of Ryou. Marik and Bakura, he noticed, were already on the ride.

He gently massaged his temple, a headache ensuing, and tried to avoid looking a Ryou.

He failed.

"Oh all right," he sighed, and Ryou grinned, grabbing his hand and pulling him with him along to the ride.

It seemed to be an old-fashioned merry-go-round that had been upgraded with some new seats and carriages. Bakura had already chosen a traditional horse, but Marik perched next to him on a big red motorbike. Ryou had chosen a typically glittery unicorn, and Malik glared at every available seat like it had personally offended him.

Eventually, he chose a polar bear, perching perilously on it, as he refused to hold on to the security handles or even sit properly on it- he 'rode' side-saddle, and was finding it had to stay balanced as the ride moved up and down.

Ryou laughed at the sight of the blonde, who had a huge scowl on his face.

'_I have to admit,'_ he thought to himself, _'he does look rather cute.'_

The ride eventually finished, and Malik found that his headache had worsened. He made his way to the reception desk as the others, reluctant to leave, followed, casting longing looks back to the fairground ride.

The two receptionists were very different. One with mid-length, blonde hair had a phone tucked against her ear, held in place by her shoulder, and was scribbling furiously down on a piece of note-paper. Her half of the desk was neat, and her 'out' box was full to the brim with paper-work she had done. She had bags under her eyes and her hair was messy, her eyes slightly glazed by the bright lights that surrounded the desk.

Every few moments she would jump to her feet, running across to a different cabinet to get a folder of this, or a document of that, and her computer screen was filled with all kinds of stuff, from the database where the clients booked in to her work email inbox.

The other girl, however, was very different.

Where as the blonde was hunched over her desk, the other, who had long dark hair that nearly reached her hips, was leant back in her chair, spinning herself half-turns on it. She was singing quietly, and seemed to have no interest in doing work at all.

As Malik reached the desk, he leant his elbows on the counter and smiled at the two.

"Can I help you?" asked the dark haired girl in a bored tone of voice.

"The four if us should have been booked in here under the name Ryou Bakura."

She sighed. "One second, I'll check."

She leant over and hit the other girl lightly in the side.

"Hey, did a Ryou Bakura book for four?"

The blonde politely put the person on the phone on hold and brought up the log book on her computer. Scanning the list quicker than Malik would have thought possible, she then jumped up and grabbed two keys from the key bank, handed them to her accomplice, and went back to taking the call.

The dark haired girl got up from behind the desk and sashayed over to the elevator door, whistling a porter as she went who ran to take the fours bags.

She turned back and gestured for the four to follow her. After dragging the yami's away from the merry-go-round, they complied.

The life took them up four flights, and then the bored hotel employee lead them down a maze of corridors that only Bakura would be able to find his way out of (hey, it didn't hurt to be a tomb robber some days).

When they eventually found their rooms, which were opposite each other, they threw in their bags and followed Bakura back out again, the hotel worker having gone to find "something to make work liveable". Ryou wondered if she was an alcoholic.

They eventually made there way past the garish foyer ride, and wandered around the city for a while, following big signs until they found themselves in front of a huge casino, which blinked with lights and roared with loud music and the sound of dice being rolled and gambling chips being moved.

Malik rolled his eyes. "No wonder Devlin has a hotel here, the amount of dice there are in this city."

They wandered in, past the doorman who looked them up and down and looked like he wanted to say something about their dishevelled appearance (hey, it was a long plane ride), but the slightly insane look on Marik and Bakura's faces seemed to warn him away.

Which was, really, better for him.

They split when they got inside, Malik heading to the bar, Ryou following him, and Bakura and Marik slipping inconspicuously away into the large hall.

Malik had decided that he really didn't want to know where they were going.

Ryou took a seat on a bar stool, and Malik stood next to him, lounging against the bar and staring around the room curiously. All of a sudden he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned to see a tall, quite beautiful woman, who oozed expensive taste. She smiled down at him.

"I'm sorry sweetie, but where did you get those ear-rings? They are quite adorable."

Malik blinked.

His ear-rings?

He couldn't actually remember where he'd got them from, only that he'd always had them. Upon telling her this, instead of the annoyance he expected, she laughed, telling him that she also had so much jewellery that she couldn't remember where it had all come from.

It was the second time in that conversation that Malik blinked with surprise.

'_Yes,'_ he thought, _'too much jewellery… that's exactly what I meant…'_

Ryou, who had been listening to the whole conversation with mirth, now took control as his friend was left looking gormless in confusion. He smiled up at the woman, offering his hand to shake hers.

"I'm Ryou Bakura, and this is my friend Malik Ishtar. Forgive our ignorance, but we haven't been in a casino before, and we're at a bit of a loss as what to do."

She smiled at Ryou, showing white teeth.

"Come on then, I'll give you a demonstration. Let's go to the roulette table."

They followed the woman across the room, heading towards a large group of people clustered around a table. One man in the middle seemed to have control over the wheel, and was taking counters from the others and placing them on squares of a board drawn on the table.

She drew them close to the table, to show them how it was done.

"In the game the dealer spins that wheel in one direction, then spins a ball in the opposite direction around the inside surface of the wheel. The ball eventually falls on to the wheel and into one of the 38 pockets, which are sorted by colour and number. Players place bets on the winning number and the color of the pocket, whether the number is odd or even, and things like that."

They stared blankly at her, and she sighed, smiling.

"Look, I'll show you."

She placed a chip on the table, calling to the dealer to put it on red, even numbers. Malik and Ryou watched the ball spin quickly and continuously around, around, around the wheel, before landing…

On a black nineteen.

Ryou sighed in exasperation for the women.

"Geez, bad luck there. So does that mean you loose that chip?"

She smiled benevolently down at him.

"Yup. But don't worry, it was only a small one."

She turned back to the dealer, and a manic glint seemed to form in her eye.

"Three on even blacks!"

Malik peeked over her shoulder, his face paling.

"Shit, Ryou! These are thousand dollar chips!"

Ryou's eyes widened as the woman lost another three. She laughed, almost manically, before placeing eleven more in several places across the board.

The dealer laughed nervously.

"Excuse me ma'am? Don't you think that's rather a lot to bet on one spin?"

She growled at him, in a way that reminded the watching hikari's of their yami's, something which worried them slightly. They backed away from the obviously addicted gambler, only to bump into their yami's, who had suspiciously bulging pockets, and wanted to leave.

Ryou glared at his taller yami.

"Please don't tell me you did."

He smirked downwards at the worried hikari.

"But of course. It's a room full of ridiculously weathly people and tourists. I'm a theif king, Ryou, what did you expect?" 

Ryou smacked his head with his hand in exasperation as Malik rounded on his own, rather furtive looking yami.

"You don't have an excuse! We're tomb keepers, not theives!"

Marik shrugged, rolling his eyes at the disbelieving blonde, and pointing at Bakura.

"I've been hanging out with him too much."


	5. Chapter Four: Dublin

Chapter 4

Dublin

Of Guinness, blackmail and drinking with the best of 'em

Dublin hadn't been on the original list of place to visit, but since they were en-route to London anyway, they decided to stop by for the day, since Bakura and Marik had picked up quite a taste for Guinness in the newly opened 'Finnegan's bar' near where they live, an Irish sports bar where drunken brawls were an every day occurrence.

And once they realised that not only was the Guinness factory in Dublin, but they could actually get tours around it, it became a given that they'd be going to it.

They landed and disembarked to what appeared to be a whole new world. The three Egyptians had been used to Ryou's over-anglicized accent, but they were in no way prepared for the accents they encountered in Ireland.

"G'day to ye sirs," the tired looking man on baggage control said as they walked through.

Bakura blinked.

"What?"

"I said g'day to ye on this early mawnin'," he smiled tiredly at them, obviously worse for wear from a previous night on the town.

Bakura stared at him.

"Do you always talk like that, or are you drunk?"

Ryou elbowed him in the side, rolling his eyes at his yamis rudeness. The Irishman simply laughed at this impudence.

"A' take it your not from round here then? Well w'all speak like this- it's our accent, regional to Dublin. Yer not used to it?"

Bakura shook his head dumbly.

Ryou groaned. Their two blonde companions were already off the tarmac, attempting to get out of the airport as quickly as possible so they could start drinking. The smaller white haired boy offered his apologies to the baggage-handler one last time, before grabbing their bags and pulling Bakura away.

The baggage handler, whose name was Seamus O'Brien, laughed to himself as the two hurried away. Tourists always were hilarious, never quite believing that the Irish spoke the way they did. He had to admit- the accent of the emerald isle was too good to be true.

Bakura took his empty bag of his light- both darks took empty ones to fill up with 'discounted' souvenirs from the Guinness factory. Ryou threw his yami an evil look as they collapsed into a taxi with their rucksacks.

"You will never cease to embarrass me, will you?"

Bakura gave Ryou a smirk that could get away with murder. It probably had.

The taxi took them right to the gates of the factory. Considering it was a Monday morning, not on any holiday, there was still a cue outside for admittance. Marik stalked past them, and the others followed. The man at the front, who wore a large red shirt proclaiming 'The pleasures of life- eat, sleep and drink good beer' that strained over his rather large belly, looked as if he was going to protest, but one glare from Marik and an evil smirk from Bakura seemed to change his mind.

They were getting too good at doing that.

Marik stared in awe at the large, wrought iron gates as they went through, into the large, busy entrance. A girl with shoulder-length brown hair, a large smile, and a big badge reading 'hey there, my name's Ailbe!"

Bakura screwed his eyes at the badge.

"Ailbe?"

She grinned.

"It's pronounced 'Al-va', sweetie."

She smiled up at him, and he took a step backwards, slightly unnerved by the fact that she didn't seem at all fazed by his manic grin.

"Are all four of you together?"

Ryou smiled at her.

"Uhuh."

She grinned back.

"Well, I'll be your tour guide for the day! If you'll come right this way… I presume you've paid?"

The yamis exchanged a glance.

"Sure!"

They all followed the excitable Irish girl, apart from Bakura, who stopped to swipe four executive passes from the back pocket of three men in the crowd.

They followed her down a long, gleaming corridor to a large door, where she stopped, and turned, the large grin still on her face. Clapping her hands to get their attention, her grin turned to a smirk.

"Well, you lot seem crazy enough to be Dubliners, considering the conversation topic you were discussing. I don't know what's going on with you lot, because you two look just like you other two, except a bit taller and stranger. But you seem cool people, and considering this is my last day, we're going to have some fun. I'm not in the mood to take the tourist route… fancy a digression, sweeties?"

Marik smirked and the girl, looping his arm through hers.

"You know what, Ailbe? I think we're going to get along just fine."

Any trace of Ailbe's wholesome grin disappeared as the smirk increased, slipping a hand into her pocket and pulling out a hip-flask that sloshed ominously. She took a long swig, and passed it to Bakura. Ryou raised his eyebrows at this, and then at Marik, and even stretched to a "tsk!" when Malik did.

Marik threw an arm around Ryou.

"Lighten up, innocent one."

Ryou scowled, grabbing the flask from the other blonde, and taking a decidedly large swig. The rest of the group stared at him in shock, and he glared defiantly back.

"Well, let's go then."

Ailbe nodded her head in assent, and threw open the doors, to uncover a large warehouse full of barrels, and men wheeling barrows, and tapping barrows with little hammers. Malik raised an eyebrow.

"I thought we were here to look at beer, not barrels."

A man overheard them, and laughed loudly.

"Ignorant fool! The beer is in the barrels!"

Needless to say, the next three hours were spent with the workers of the factory, all who seemed to love Ailbe like a little sister, and were quite willing to show her new acquaintances the ins and outs of beer making, as well as quite a few tasting sessions that even Ryou participated in, and whilst the yamis had drunk more, they had not done so that many times previously.

The dusk saw five people stumbling out of the workers entrance to the Guinness factory, and coming to a stop at the road.

"Hey, boys? If you're not going anywhere, d'you want to check out some real Dublin drinking?"

Malik and Marik exchanged a look.

"Well, we only have a private jet to get back to. I guess we can stretch to a few drinks…"

The 'real Dublin drinking' that their new Irish friend had been speaking of turned out to be a series of bars in the backstreets of the central, which, to the yamis adoring eyes, appeared to be just like Finnegan's bar, but everyone had stronger accents, stronger drinks, and the brawls were a lot more amicable.

After the first pub, Bakura had a black eye. He wasn't that bothered- the man that gave it him stumbled into A and E an hour later with three broken ribs.

After the second pub, Ryou stopped drinking. He wasn't that much of a fool. As a light, he and Yugi considered it to be their jobs to stop their darks making stupid mistakes. Oh, Malik? Well, it was generally considered that he was the exception to the limited rule. He could pass as a dark, even to a sober man.

After the third pub, they had all acquired flashing bead necklaces and glow sticks.

After the fourth pub, another man joined the first in A and E. Malik could be very protective over Ryou when drunk men and women alike started hitting on him. Ryou stopped Malik getting too serious though- he only ended up with a fractured nose. It was a good job he didn't hit Malik back, because Marik wasn't good at keeping his temper when people hit his light.

After the fifth pub, Marik and Bakura vanished, both with questionable looks on their faces, with their hands slipping to **very**questionable places. They were not seen again until Ryou and Malik got back to the plane, where they were cuddled together on the floor, stark naked but thankfully covered in several blankets.

After the sixth pub, Ailbe found a rather attractive young man who seemed to show a rather keen intrest in her, and she excused herself from the remaining two with hugs, and an e-mail address, making them promise that if they were ever in town again that they'd go drinking again. Ryou had to ask her before she left something that had been nagging him for a while.

"Hey, Ailbe! Why did you get fired from the factory?"

She grinned.

"I didn't! I left- I've got a better offer!"

She slipped her hand up her mans shirt and winked at them.

"I've just inherited a pub from my grandfather, now he's retired!"

With this suggestion of impending doom for other local pubs, she stumbled out, pulling her new 'friend' behind her.

Ryou turned to the overly-intoxicated Malik.

"Shall we head back?"

They finished off their drinks, and the pair, Malik supported by Ryou, wandered out of the pub, following the signs for the airport, laughing loudly at nothing in particular.

They'd been walking for around ten minutes when Malik stopped, unsteady on his feet, and turned Ryou round to face him. He smiled, a sweet smile that not many people had ever seen before.

"Ryou!"

He hugged the smaller light, talking into the white-haired boy's neck.

"I'm really glad to have met you, Ryou."

His words were slurred, fractured, but they meant the world to Ryou.

"And I'm glad to have met you, too. Now, shall we get you back?"

Malik nodded happily and the pair continued back to the plane, where they discovered the naked-but-covered forms of their darks.

Ryou lifted the armrests up on a couple of chairs and lay Malik down on it, who promptly fell straight to sleep. Ryou smiled affectionately at the blonde and he covered him in a blanket. He looked at the sleeping yamis cautiously, before kneeling down, and gently kissed the other on the cheek.

He stood up again, and stretched, smiled serenely at his three house-mates. He yawned loudly, before deciding to join the three in sleep- after all, it was London the next day.

_Well, there you have it. London is very nearly done, and will be posted before New Years, I promise. Forgive me for the time it took and spelling errors. _

_Oh, and by the way, if anyone was offended by how I stereotypicalized the Irish, but please don't take it seriously- I love the Irish, they are my favourite race of people,y stepmother is Irish, I like Guinness and the Pogues, and Irish accents are the best, by far._

_Next chapter up soon, I promise!_


	6. Chapter Five: London

Chapter 5

London

Tourist traps, attempted arrest and problems with crows

They needed a lot of sleep after Dublin, and when they awoke, three of them wished they hadn't woken up at all.

Ryou sat in his seat in a traditional British black cab, bouncing slightly from excitement, watched through bleary eyes by the other three. Marik, who was sitting next to him, put on hand flat on top of Ryou's head, stopping him bouncing.

"Please don't do that, precious. I already have enough of a headache."

Yes, it was true, the three had such bad hangovers that they were willing to crawl under the covers and never emerge again, but Ryou's boundless excitement at being home had affected them all, so here they were, heading into central London, after swallowing eleven paracetamol between the three of them.

Bakura glared weakly at his light.

"Why in Ra's name aren't you hung over?"

Ryou smiled placidly at him.

"Because, Bakura, I can hold my drink."

Bakura gaped, reminding himself that next time they went out to watch how Ryou could actually _refuse_ alcohol, especially the free stuff at the Guinness factory they had been at the day before.

Malik shuddered slightly at how happy Ryou was, and resolved _never_ to go back to Ireland, if only so he could laugh at Marik and Bakura, who never learnt their lesson when it came to anything, let alone alcohol.

'_The most disturbing part of last night,'_ Malik thought, _'is that I can't remember any of what happened after O'Leary's.'_

He sighed, and leant back in his seat, resolving to doze whilst the painkillers started their work.

Whilst his light went to sleep, Marik decided it was time to find out what they were doing that day. Since he's arranged for them to go to London especially for Ryou, he had resolved to let him choose what to do.

"Well," Ryou replied to the question, "I thought we'd to all the tourist traps, since none of you have been here before, then I thought we could eat at a place that was my favourite, when I lived around here."

Marik nodded in consent, and followed Malik's example and fell into a doze in the long traffic jam. Pretty soon after Bakura followed suit, leaving Ryou to reminisce of his old life in England. It didn't take him long to realise that he was quite nostalgic for Britain, for the long days of rain, for the traditional Sunday roast, and, most importantly, for mugs of tea, something that just wasn't quite the same in Domino, although he still hadn't worked out why.

He stared up at the grey mist fogging up the city, and smiled.

'_There's nothing quite like returning to horrendous British weather,_' he thought, '_except perhaps the knowledge that when you get back from school, living with three people that you'd have never believed you could share a house with, you realise that more than anything else, it's home._'

He smiled to himself as he looked at his three housemates; Malik asleep on the window, his blonde mane a mess of bed-hair; Marik with his legs tucked under himself, snoring gently; Bakura, with his head resting on Marik's lap, his hair sticking out even more than usual.

'_Yeah,'_ he thought, _'these three make it home.'_

They pulled up outside the visitor's entrance to the Tower of London, and Ryou shook each of them awake. Malik was not unpleasantly surprised to realise his headache had gone, and he felt more alive than he had done all day. He jumped out of the cab after Ryou, who was now busy paying the driver.

Malik listened to their accents, laughing to himself as he realised that it wasn't just Ryou who talked like that- everyone in Britain seemed to.

Marik and Bakura stumbled out of the cab, cursing, Marik still clutching his head.

"Ryou," whined Bakura, "what's here?"

The addressed hikari seemed to be thinking of a way to avoid the question, but he soon realised that he was going to have to answer, so he did, mumbling under his breath, but not so inaudible that Bakura couldn't hear.

"The Crown Jewels."

The other three stared at him, wide eyed. Marik and Malik's eyes were wide with horror, possibly imagining how things could go in the future, after bringing the thief king and a priceless amount of jewels together, adding on the prestige of stealing from Royal family.

Bakura's eyes were simply wide with glee.

Malik licked his lips, a nervous trait he'd had for years.

"This place is famous for its security, isn't it?"

Instead of deterring the thief, as this comment was supposed to do, Bakura's eyes lit with a fire that only seemed to burn when the prospect of breaking and entering came up, a flame that seemed to burn brighter the harder and more difficult the robbery was, the greater the chance for failure.

If there was one thing Bakura relished, it was a challenge.

And if there was one thing the Tower of London offered, it was a challenge of the highest calibre.

Ryou groaned, realising his mistake. He'd brought Bakura here without even taking into account the implications, without even considering the consequences.

Boy, did he feel like a fool now.

Bakura wasn't listening to any of them now, just staring with glee at the tower before him. Ryou paid entrance, unwillingly, and they were let in.

It might have turned out better if it wasn't for the crows.

For those who don't know, the Tower of London is famous for its crows. Hundreds roost on and around it, and, myth has it, the day the crows leave the tower is the day London will be destroyed.

Needless to say, this theory has never been proven.

The aforementioned crows never _normally _did things like this. Many anxious workers at the tower told them that, afterwards, and a visiting bird fanatic who had decided to stick his nose in where it wasn't wanted or needed told them in an authoritive tone that he'd never seen anything like it.

That was not a great comfort to the three- Ryou had come out of it unharmed. Marik presumed it was because he was British.

You see, the crows had _dive-bombed_ them.

They had been innocently walking (well as innocently as the king of thieves and two psychopaths who had both tried to take over the world could do- Ryou, again, seemed to manage the innocent walk rather well) along the path to the entrance, and all of a sudden, as if the crows could sense Bakura's malicious intent towards their tower, they just attacked.

Needless to say, they left, and Ryou decided wisely against the Houses of Parliament, Windsor Castle and Downing Street.

'_I wonder,_' Malik thought, _'if Ryou ever has anything bad happen to him whilst he's in Britain. Is it some kind of lucky charm to have that accent? Or is he just too perfect for anything to happen to him, so it rains down twice as hard on us?'_

Malik was going to regret wondering if bad things ever happened to Ryou. He was going to regret it really soon.

Ryou had taken them to the London Eye. The grey fog from earlier had lifted, leaving the sky, whilst not blue, with a thin layer of high, light grey cloud. Ryou hastily explained that this was _good _weather for Britain, but hadn't convinced Bakura and Malik, whose idea of good weather was blazing sunshine, being from Egypt and all.

Marik and Ryou were unfazed by the Eye- Ryou had seen it before and Marik, and Ryou had found out long ago, was unfazed by nothing- apparently he'd come to expect nothing but the insane from this world.

Malik glared at the Eye wearily. Having spent most of his life in a god-damned hole under the deserts sands, he still wasn't quite sure about a lot of electric, modern or futuristic things, and the Eye fell into all three categories quite nicely, he reckoned.

Bakura simply gawked.

He'd never seen anything like it, he really hadn't.

The massive Ferris wheel loomed in the London skyline, each seating cart replaced with futuristic pods, white with large windows that each held many. It sat on the edge of the river, almost squatting.

They were fortunate- since it wasn't a holiday or weekend, the queue was minimal and the four got a pod to themselves. Bakura and Ryou stared outwards, their mouths gaping with glee. Even Marik lost his cool, standing with his mouth open as they got progressively higher and higher.

The only one of them who seemed unimpressed was Malik, who was on one of the seats in the middle, arms folded, and head down. He hadn't even looked outwards, seeming to find his knees much more interesting.

However, he couldn't help but look up when he heard Marik yell something that sounded like it would mean trouble.

"Bulls-eye!"

'Shit,' Malik thought, 'what in the Pharaoh's name are they doing?'

'They' were Marik and Bakura, and they were currently throwing medium sized pebbles (of which Bakura, for no adequately explained reason had a pocket of) out of one of the small windows at people below. Normally, they would have been a small annoyance, hardly hurting, but pebbles dropped from one hundred and thirty meters in the air tend to pick up a lot of kinetic force, and they were causing serious pain.

The 'bulls-eye', in case you are interested, had hit a small poodle and laid it unconscious,

And if you were wondering why they were doing this to innocent people and their pets, the yamis would have an answer- they'd gotten bored.

Lesson of this tale? Never let yamis get bored.

Ryou groaned when he realised what the yamis were doing, and he grabbed them by an ear each, pulling hard until they were forced to bend over, hiding them from view from the people below.

"RYOU! That hurts!" Marik yelled angrily.

"Stupid hikari." Bakura muttered when Ryou let go.

They were interrupted by police sirens.

"Shit."

Later, Ryou couldn't remember who had sworn, but it summed up the feelings of those in the pod quite well.

As the pod inched its way down, the police car pulled up at the bottom and a uniformed officer got out, talking to the woman whose poodle had gotten hit.

Let's introduce a character, shall we? This is PC Cook, one of the many in the strong arm of the British law. He was tall and wiry, and exceedingly bored, which meant that when the call came through his radio that Lady Pommingerton's award winning prize poodle that had more pedigree than the Queen was under fire, he turned on the sirens and pelted though London, a grin of glee on his face as he broke the speed limits that police officers were exempt from.

When he arrived, Lady Pommingerton was nearly in tears over her precious poodle that her butler was now carrying on a velvet cushion. Before you ask where the velvet cushion came from, I'll remind you that butlers are prepared for any eventually, and always carry useful things around with them. This butler was no exception.

She had been beautiful in her youth, and Lady Pommingerton had been determined to keep her looks in her older age, using the miracle that is plastic surgery. She thought she looked unspeakably gorgeous. The rest of the world just thought she looked unspeakable. Her arms and hands were dripping with gold, and she hugged a fur coat to herself to ward out the cold.

As the PC took her slightly hysterical statement, the pod reached the ground. They strolled out, innocently as possible, and the police officer turned to them.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, but I would like to ask you a few questions concerning the assault on this animal."

Bakura and Marik stood at the front, arms crossed, automatically protecting their lights. They glared at the officer and said nothing. Ryou elbowed his way past them and grinned apologetically up at PC Cook.

The PC melted in Ryou's large and innocent eyes, as did most people.

"Umm, I was… Umm…"

He was interrupted by a sharp elbow in the side from Lady Pommingerton's butler.

"Ah, ahem, yes. I need to question you four on the assault of this dog. And, errm, I mean, if you saw anything or the pod that the missiles were aimed from."

The officer seemed mesmerised by the young British boy. Ryou shrugged cutely, and bit his lip, frowning.

"I'm sorry sir, but none of us saw anything. We were just watching the city, but the skyline, not so much the ground. I'm really sorry we couldn't be of more help, sir."

With that, he grabbed hold of the yamis and walked swiftly away, hoping that Malik would have the sense to follow as closely as possible. They walked until they were out of the sight of the officer, and then Ryou released the yamis arms that he'd had in a vice-like grip.

"Shit, Ryou," said Bakura, "How in Ra's name do you do that?"

Ryou looked confused.

"Do what?"

"Hypnotise people like that!"

Ryou stared up at his yami, obviously perplexed.

"I'm not sure, Bakura. It might just be a British thing, but I've always thought it was just a natural talent."

"How can I do it?"

"Well, Bakura. You'll never be able to do it, because unlike me, you actually do things that you're not supposed to do."

"Your point?"

_Well, I told you it'd be up before New Years. I apologise for this chapter, I think it tried too hard to be funny._

_Next Chapter will be Paris, and we will see a rather unimpressed millionaire and a rather unexpected phobia._

_Please reveiw!_


	7. Chapter Six: Paris

Chapter 6

Paris

Lifts, taxi drivers and Seto Kaiba

Compared to some of the other plane trips they had been on, London to Paris was merely a skip over the ocean. However, they were left waiting, in the plane, for the runways to clear at Gatwick for nearly an hour due to delays at the airport and the general lack of commitment to the job that those working in air traffic control had on days when Arsenal was playing Chelsea, a football match that none of them were happy to be giving up for work.

During this hour, one by one the inhabitants fell asleep. Within ten minutes of warm air and soft background music, Bakura had fell asleep on Marik's lap, who managed to keep his eyes open only a few minutes longer, and he lulled himself to sleep with the soft, rhythmic stroking of Bakura's hair.

Ryou managed only a little longer, chatting softly to Malik, interrupting himself with large, long yawns, and pretty soon he had fallen asleep mid-sentence, leaving Malik to his thoughts.

Thoughts of what? Of the sleeping boy next to him, of course.

The blonde couldn't stop his eyes being drawn to the young man, watching his appearance as he slept. His long white hair fell across his fine-featured face, fluttering over his lips as his breath moved the strands. He watched his face for a while, but he couldn't help but gently push the hair away from Ryou's lips, and then off his face.

Feeling the soft hands, Ryou muttered incoherently in his sleep, and moved slightly, so his head was resting on Malik's shoulder in a way that didn't look particularly comfortable.

After waiting a few minutes, tense and rigid, in case Ryou woke up, Malik pulled Ryou into a more comfortable position, and, with one arm draped casually around Ryou's waist to make sure he didn't fall, he rested his chin on soft, white hair and joined the rest of his house-mates in sleep.

Their sleep was undisturbed for quite a while longer, until the rumble of the plane taking off woke up Bakura, who was the lightest sleeper of them all. No doubt due to years of being on the run back in Egypt, I hasten to add.

He sat up slightly, before lying back on his make-shift pillow- Marik. Not tired enough to fall back asleep, he rested his eyes and smiled to himself as he remembered the date.

One-year anniversaries can make even the most mental of thief kings happy.

It had been back when Bakura and Ryou were both still at Ryou's fathers house, and Malik and Marik in an apartment loaned from Isis, both pairs looking for a way, any way, to get housing away from the parental supervision that even older sisters can give.

It had to have been Ryou that found a way, of course. The idea of house sharing hadn't occurred to any of the others, but it felt like as soon as Ryou mentioned it, they'd found a house, Ryou (of course) had put down the deposit, and they had moved in.

Sure, he'd always been attracted to Marik, but only in a one night stand way, and they'd had a few of those before they moved in together with their hikari's.

It had been the sudden amount of time they'd been spending together and the relatively small amount of space they shared that made them fall more and more for each other, and all it took, in the end, was for Malik and Ryou to both be visiting their families, leaving them the house for a weekend. After the several months of being friends but wanting to be more, Bakura had been reaching breaking point, and it took them one and three quarter bottles of vodka to admit it.

'_Since then?_' Bakura mused, _'life has never been better.'_

He moved closer to Marik, and fell back asleep as the plane cruised over the Channel.

None of them woke up until they landed almost an hour later. After a slightly awkward moment when Ryou woke up to find Malik's head resting on his and the blondes arm around his waist, they all stretched and waited for the pilot to open the door. Cursing the interruption of their sleep, the four stumbled out with their bags onto the runway, where they found a nasty surprise.

Next to them, standing in all its egotistical glory, was none other than Seto Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon jet. They gaped at it, surprised, but not a little bit worried.

Swiftly moving on, however, they went through customs and into a waiting taxi, who drove them through the relatively empty streets of Paris (because most streets are empty at three in the morning), and tumbled into beds at the Parisian branch of Devlin hotels.

The next morning, well, really it was early afternoon by the time they were all ready to leave, the group found it rather more difficult to find a taxi, and, once they had done, they found the journey rather more difficult than the one the night before.

Only Ryou had the common sense to put on a seatbelt, and after a while, the others wished that they had followed suit.

Driving along the Rue Jacob was an experience in itself. Drivers leant their whole frames on horns, hanging out of windows with unlit cigarettes dangling limply from the corners of their mouths. Tempers were running high from the drivers, and most passengers hung onto their seats, the tourists pale-faced, the locals laughing, admiring the pretty girls wandering up and down the roads or filing their nails in boredom. Mopeds dodged from bumper to bumper, and Malik became entranced watching them.

As soon as a traffic light turned green, the cabs threw themselves forward, causing the occupants to fly forward, off their seats. From their new vantage points on the floor, the three glared up at a laughing Ryou, but the looks were quickly stopped as the driver slammed on the brakes and they were thrown backwards into the feet of their seats.

They were still groaning in pain as they disembarked from the cab at the Eiffel Tower, leaving Ryou to pay, since they'd entrusted the majority of their money to him, and because he was the only one in any way familiar to the euro.

Malik wearily eyed the Eiffel Tower.

"We're not going up _that,_ are we?"

Ryou merely nodded, staring blissfully up at the tower. The queue was, thankfully, nearly non-existent, it being a weekday and not a holiday (Ryou had decided to ignore the fact that he was skipping school to go on this trip), and Marik and Bakura had already ran off, explained to the man that the pair behind them would be paying, and boarded the lift, grinning manically (which was probably part of the reason that they'd been allowed on there without paying anyway- those grins could make grown men shiver).

Ryou walked over to the entrance at a much more leisurely pace, stopping halfway when he realised that Malik was not walking with him. He turned, staring at the blonde, who was regarding the tower with a wary eye.

"Problem?"

Malik jumped, not expecting Ryou's question. He shook his head forcefully, jogging to catch up with Ryou, and they walked together to the entrance.

By the time they got there, the lift that Marik and Bakura had taken up was nearly back down, and they only had to wait a few minutes until they could get into it, Ryou with a huge grin of expectancy on his face, and Malik cautiously, with a slightly pained expression on his.

As the lift slowly rose, Ryou noticed something was wrong, very wrong, with Malik. His face had turned an ashen white, tinged a very unhealthy grey, and his eyes were large with fear. His hands gripped tightly onto the rail, and as the lift made an almost unnoticeable bump, he moaned quietly to himself and screwed his eyes tightly shut.

Ryou stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Malik?"

Malik didn't seem to hear him, but his fists tightened on the rail until his knuckles were white.

"Malik?"

Ryou repeated his name as he slung an arm around the blonde's shoulders.

"You're not scared of lifts, are you?"

The only response he got was a muffled moan. The moan was because of another small bump, and the muffled was because the blonde had buried his face in Ryou's collarbone, his hands moving from the bar to clutch the others shirt.

Ryou was, quite understandably, shocked by this response to a simple question. But he responded like any good friend (especially one that was thinking, subconsciously, that he might want a little bit more than friendship) would do, and, with the one arm already on Malik's shoulders, held him close, the other hand softly stroking the blonde hair, whispering words of encouragement as they made their slightly bumpy way to the top of the Eiffel tower.

At the top of the tower, Malik and Bakura were exchanging a rare moment of quiet affection, leaning on the rail, hand in hand, Marik resting his head in the crook of Bakura's neck. They turned as the door of the elevator opened, to greet their hikari's, and stood, Bakura gaping, and Marik smirking the self-satisfied smile of a man who has just won a lot of money.

Ryou and Malik leapt away from each other, Malik running out of the lift to collapse on the floor. Both of them were blushing, but Malik seemed more intent on getting his breath back than explaining to the bemused yamis, which left Ryou, stuttering, to try and explain why they had appeared to be in a passionate embrace.

Needless to say, Marik and Bakura didn't believe him. It took a shared lift down, where Malik again clung on to the front of Ryou's shirt, to even waver their opinion on the two, but they still were uncertain, since the look of contentment in Ryou's eyes as he again wrapped one arm around Malik and with the other stroked the blondes hair, well, that look was all Bakura needed to be convinced that he was going to loose his bet to Marik.

Not that he would admit that, of course.

I could tell you about the rest of their day in Paris, but it is relatively uneventful, except for perhaps the incident at Notre-Dame, where Bakura challenged a stone gargoyle to a duel in the shadow realm because it was 'looking' at him the wrong way. Aside from that, and the slightly embarrassing lunch at a street café, where Marik had ordered steak tartar, and proceeded to eat it with such gusto that blood had splattered across the table next to them, the day had been a typical tourists day in the European capital of love.

By the end of the day, Ryou had become very confused. Bakura and Marik had been acting strangely all day… a lot more _couple-y _and a lot less destructively than usual.

It took a conversation with Malik, their earlier embarrassment gone, to straighten things out for him.

"Well, don't you remember the date?"

Ryou stared blankly at Malik, who sighed, frustrated.

"It's their anniversary, isn't it? Jeez, you're supposed to be the one good at remembering this sort of thing. They've been together a year now; to be honest I think half of Marik agreeing to this was so he could have them _here_ on their anniversary- even I think that's kind of romantic. And strangely thoughtful, for a guy who just spent an hour spitting on people from the top of a cathedral."

Ryou grinned, obviously finding the whole idea too adorable for words. They continued to walk in a comfortable silence behind the Bakura and Marik, who were holding hands and laughing softly at something one of them had just said.

It didn't matter how _cute _Ryou found it, Malik just found it a little creepy for the two psychopaths to be so damn _sweet_ for once.

Ryou suddenly bolted forward, running past the two in front and turning around, walking backwards, talking to the couple in a voice that Malik just couldn't quite catch. Ryou quickly skipped back to him though, smiling broadly.

"We're gonna split in a minute, I thought those two would prefer an evening alone."

Before they could split, however, they came face to face with a very unwelcome multi-millionaire.

Seto Kaiba.

He was walking along the same street, resplendent in a trademark white suit, and it was not the fact that he was actually _walking_ instead of using one of his many cars that made them gape- no, it was the fact that he appeared to be on a _date._

You know, like the kind of thing an _ordinary _teenager might do.

And Seto Kaiba could be called a lot of things, but ordinary was not one of them.

The girl at his side was, to be frank, stunning. Long, dark brown hair fell in glossy curls down her back, stopping just above her hips, and her large brown eyes took in everything. Her skin was soft looking, naturally tanned, and her curves were accentuated by the dress she was wearing, a knee length red one, that was somehow modest yet alluring at the same time.

Seto Kaiba was known for wanting only the best, so it's of no surprise that his taste in women was the same.

Seto Kaiba looked distinctly uncomfortable when he saw them. And if he had hoped to pass the four without incident, he was living in a dream world, one possibly filled with people spending thousands a day on Kaiba Corp. software and where there was no Yugi, and he was still champion of Duel Monsters.

Oh yeah, and he owned the world.

Unfortunately for Seto Kaiba, this apparent dream world was about to come crashing down around his ears.

Marik got there first.

"Seto Kaiba! My good old 'Battle City' adversary! What are you doing in this famous city of love, then?" he asked, with a hugely fake grin on his face and a nudge to Bakura, who did not need encouraging.

"And who is this beautiful young girl you're boring to death, then?"

Bakura added this with a wink to the girl, who all of a sudden seemed to find the sky a much more interesting thing to look at. Bakura linked arms with her, continuing.

"So what is his chosen topic today? The fact that he will never be able to beat Yugi Motou at Duel Monsters, no matter how hard he tries, and no matter how many stupid plans he makes to beat him?"

Seto Kaiba, had he been an animal, would have growled. But of course, he was far to dignified for that. He, instead, gave them a pitying look.

"Or perhaps," Malik chimed in, "it's the fact that magic defiantly doesn't exist, no matter how many times it proves him wrong?"

The girl was trying hard to cover up her laughter now, and Seto Kaiba was quickly losing his cool and flushing with rage. Ryou stared on in disbelief

"Now, now," cut in Marik, "We all know what he'll be talking about really. What else but the vast amount of money he has, and just how fantastic he is?"

She laughed out loud at that one, and Seto Kaiba glowered, all hope of staying calm gone.

Bakura shook his head, but it was Malik that spoke first, taking the words right out of Bakura's mouth.

"Marik, you can be a fool sometimes. Kaiba talks about nothing but the Blue-Eyes White Dragon."

"You hit it there," she said between laughs, "It's your favourite conversation topic, isn't it, Seto?"

Seto looked slightly appalled by this. Not only had his date been hijacked by the same freaks that had almost ruined his Battle City tournament, now his date was _agreeing_ with them? This was even worst than losing in his own tournament, and that had been humiliating, to say the least.

'_My god,'_ Seto Kaiba thought, _'I fly us half-way across the world to stay away from the dork patrol, only to find myself face to face with the freak show drop-outs. How humiliating.'_

However, Seto Kaiba did what he does best in situations like that, and put on his 'I have the methods and money to have you vaporised, and the influence to have your very existence forgotten- now get the hell away from me before I loose my temper' face on, and turned it on the four, who wilted under his gaze.

Malik and Ryou decided it was time to make an exit, and disappeared off down the road. Seto Kaiba's date waved them off.

Bakura still had his arm looped through the girl's, and now Marik took her other, the three chatting, and the yamis slipping in not-so-subtle digs at Kaiba whenever the opportunity arose, which was often. Kaiba, realising his 'vaporizing' face wasn't having the effect he wanted, decided to take a slightly more unorthodox method of what he would later refer to as 'pest-control'.

He picked up the two offending 'freaks' by the scruff of their necks, and deposited them on their knees at the side of the road, before taking the recently vacated arm of his date and led her away. She wasn't really complaining- who would be? It's Seto Kaiba, after all.

Bakura and Marik sat in hysterics at the side of the road for quite a while longer, both receiving an unaccountable amount of strange looks by both the tourists and the locals passing by.

As soon as they had calmed down, they wandered back down the street, looking for a suitably romantic restaurant that didn't have any millionaire's in it, and looked laid back enough for it to be acceptable for blood to be spattered across the tables.

**LINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINELINE**

_Long wait, I know. I apologise. Next chapter will be up soon as, and I mean it this time.  
Hope you enjoyed. I'd love some reviews from those who have this on alert, so they can tell me if the story is getting worse or better.  
I do love Seto Kaiba. He's so easy to mock._

_Oooh! Details. I've finalised the story now- it's going to be about another seven chapters, and probably an epilogue, depening on what you all want._

_Sneak preview? Oh, go one then. We're off to Belgium next._

_Ciao. NT-x_


	8. Chapter Seven: Belgium

Chapter Seven

Belgium

Chocolate, indulgence and 500 brands of beer 

Bakura was whining again.

"I don't want to leave- I want to stay here and find Kaiba and embarrass him some more!"

Ryou smiled.

"You know as well as I do that Kaiba will be long gone by now, probably off to romantic location number two, because since it's him, he'll have about thirteen back-up plans."

"Well then, can we g-"

Bakura was cut of by a whack to the back of the head by Marik.

"We are not chasing after Kaiba. The next place is too good to miss."

Bakura turned to glare at Marik, rubbing his head and pouting.

"There was no need for violence." 

Ryou snorted with laughter.

"Coming from you?"

They were back on the plane, flying over mainland Europe. It wasn't a long flight, they'd learned from Marik (although who was to trust him?) and they were all sitting, for no explained reason, on the plane floor, in the aisles between the walls and the banks of seats that ran down the middle of the plane.

Malik and Bakura sat cross-legged opposite Ryou, who was leaning against the wall. Marik had just come up behind them, giving him the advantage to whack Bakura. He settled down next to the two cross-legged men.

"Where are we going, Marik? We're nearly there now, so you might as well tell us."

"Patience."

Ryou raised one eyebrow at this hypocrisy.

"Well, we're heading north-east from Paris, and since it's not a long fight, it's going to be somewhere near. Germany? The Netherlands?"

Marik shook his head at the hikari.

"Nope. Belgium."

The three looked at him sceptically.

"Why Belgium? What are we going to see?"

Ryou's eyes shone.

"There are quite a few war museums in Belgium, and there are a number of interesting-"

Bakura cut him off.

"If Ryou finds them interesting, they are not going to be."

Ryou flushed indignantly, which Bakura ignored, and continued to talk.

"Please tell me we are not seeing them." 

Marik shook his head.

"It's not a long trip- we're not staying overnight. I just wanted to try the chocolate."

Ryou stopped his indignant huffing, eyes wide.

"Chocolate?"

For those who are not acquainted with the British fixation, I'll pause to explain. British chocolate and sweets are very sugar-y, and taste exceptionally good, and the British can't get enough of it. Including Ryou.

Marik continued, ignoring the glazed look on Ryou's face.

"Apparently, Belgium chocolate is the best in the world. Well, actually, it's a toss up between that and Swiss chocolate, but Belgium was en-route, so I figured we wont go to Switzerland."

Ryou glanced over at him.

"Even though it's one of the richest countries around, and it invented the Swiss army knife, of which we have at least five in the house?"

Bakura and Marik glanced at each other.

"Did you know that?"

A long pause.

"Damn."

_A little while later_

After several sulks because they were not allowed to change the route this far along, they landed in Belgium. They took a cab from the airport (and Ryou had shuddered at the expense of the fare) to the nearest town, which was neither too small nor too big, and it was pretty, with lots of little shops on the perimeter of the town square.

"Hey, guys? Did you know that Belgium is pretty famous for its beer?"

Three heads snapped towards Ryou, eyes large with curiosity and hope.

"Seriously?"

Ryou smirked, something which they all found a little unnerving.

"Yeah. There are hundreds of local types…"

Marik was looking around him frantically, trying to see a bar. When he had spotted one, the two yami's had disappeared before Ryou could even blink.

He turned to Malik, who had his arms crossed and eyes closed, giving off a perfected air of one that really doesn't give a shit about what people think.

"Don't you want to go with them?"

"Not particularly. We'll get you some chocolate first. I don't want to be around when they get drunk, not if I can help it."

Ryou smiled.

"You sure?"

Malik opened one eye and glanced at the other.

"Sure. You wanted chocolate, right? We'll get you some first."

There was only one large shop on the square, but it had once been three that were knocked together. The long glass window had an animal theme, with a large chocolate cat chasing several sugar mice next to a pond made from crystallised sugar, on which several chocolate ducks were 'floating'. On the other side of the pond were some rabbits, with little sugar flowers scattered around.

Malik thought it was a little pointless.

Ryou loved it.

He dashed inside, leaving the blond to follow him, his hands now in his pockets.

The shop was cool and smelled of melted chocolate, unsurprisingly. There were shelves of boxed chocolates, of different brands and varieties, and a big display of trays of individual chocolates, which you could pick and choose from. There were large trays of pick and mix sweets, and an arc of lollypops that was spread like a rainbow. There were small displays dotted around the tiled floor, each one displaying a shaped chocolate or sugar animal, and the woman behind the counter was smiling in gentle amusement at Ryou, who was looking around with a glazed look on his face, as if he had just wandered into heaven.

Malik rolled his eyes. Ryou was the ultimate 'kid in a candy shop'.

The blonde leaned against a wall, and watched Ryou flit around, picking and choosing and piling his purchases up on the counter. He had so far collected a small tray of sugar mice, a small chocolate owl, and a bag of fudge. He was in the middle of picking out a bag of pick and mix sweets when he looked over at Malik.

"Do you not want anything?"

Malik sighed.

"I'm not a… massive fan of chocolate."

Ryou gaped.

"I like sweets though. I might get something."

"How… how on earth can you not like chocolate?"

Ryou sounded so confused, so shocked, that it was endearing, and Malik wandered over, pulling out a bag.

"I just don't, particularly. It is too thick and creamy, and I feel like it clogs up my mouth."

Ryou just gave the blonde a strange look, and they carried on choosing sweets. When Ryou dumped the rather large bag on the counter, he slapped his forehead.

"Geez! How could I forget? I'm going to have to get the other two some stuff whilst I'm here, since by the time we find them they'll be very, very drunk." 

Ryou proceeded to add two oversized lollypops to his collection, despite Malik's warning that it might make the pair hyper, and two large chocolate rabbits.

"Rabbits?"

Ryou smiled serenely as the woman bagged up his goods and his pulled out his wallet.

"They'll enjoy biting the heads off."

Malik sighed. What was worrying was that it was probably true.

Ryou waited outside whilst Malik paid, but Ryou noticed immediately that Malik's bag was too big for just one pick and mix.

"What's in there?"

Malik smirked.

"You'll just have to wait and see, wont you?"

They found the yami's in a local tavern, both of them slouched against the bar whilst a very cheerful barman poured them each another drink.

"And this is a brand of Tripel ale, called Westmalle Trappist Tripel. It's pretty strong."

Bakura and Marik drank the pints in one long, extended swig.

The bartender looked elated.

Ryou looked horrified.

Malik, who was used to seeing such things, simply went over to the bar, calmly took Bakura's wallet out of his unresisting pocket, and paid the rather expensive bill.

The bartender looked at them happily.

"You take care of your friends now! They've been drinking all different kinds of our local beers and ales… they are stronger than most outside folk are used to!"

Bakura lurched from the pub, followed by Marik and the lights, muttering happily.

"500 types of beer! In one country!"

Marik grinned wildly.

"It's kind of like heaven, isn't it?"

Ryou glared at them in disapproval.

"How many did you drink?"

The pair gave each other a look that was probably supposed to be sly, but only managed to make them look like they were squinting.

"Only two or three-"

"Or twelve?"

"Shut up, Marik!"

_**I apologise for how bad this chapter is. I love Belgium though. The town is where I stayed, but I couldn't really make them do all the historic sites of the country, like the war memorials and graveyards, because as beautiful as they are, I don't think Marik and Bakura would really treat them with the respect the WW1 and 2 deceased really deserve. XD**_

_**Please review!**_


	9. Chapter Eight: Amsterdam

Chapter Eight

Amsterdam

Alcohol, canals and illegal substances

_(Hum. You can tell from the title that this might not go well, can't you? I might have to up the rating just for this chapter. Long wait, I know. I apologise, but this chapter is pretty long, so I hope it makes up for it.)_

The four were currently seated around the mini-bar they had just discovered in Duke Devlin's bedroom. Ryou had protested a little about raiding his drinks cabinet, but as Bakura had argued: if Duke hadn't wanted them to drink, he wouldn't have put it there.

Ryou didn't really think this was fair, or that the argument even had even a trace of sagacity in it, but he didn't want to come between Marik and vodka. The last person who had done that ended up bleeding in a ditch, with little recollection of the night before.

Marik had discovered a selection of mini-bottles of different kinds of the beloved spirit, and was currently trying each, one after the other, both of the darks still not fully sober from their Belgium beer earlier that day, even though it was nearly three in the morning and Ryou had doused them with cold water before letting them back on the plane.

Bakura had surprised them all, the first time they had seen him drinking, because more than anything, one would have put him down as a spirits drinker, as it gets you drunk the quickest, but although he actually would drink anything, he was a wine man at heart, since back in Egypt it was a staple drink, and although this shock had been diminished a long time ago, it still made him smile to watch Bakura pull out various bottles, and examine the year and region of grape.

He looked for all the world like a well-educated, intellectual man, an illusion which was soon shattered when Bakura bit the top off his selected bottle, and spat the glass and cork across the room, turning back to swig the no-doubt incredibly expensive wine.

Ryou wondered, not for the first time, why Duke Devlin had actually agreed to this trip. What was so bad that he'd let them do this?

Ryou turned to Malik, as if for clarification, because it was to him that Devlin had owed the favour that this trip had come from.

Malik was too busy deciding between two different brands of beer to notice Ryou's questioning glance.

Bakura glanced up.

"Shit, Marik!"

"What?"

"We never got any chocolate in Belgium."

There was a long pause as Marik's alcohol infused brain tried to process what had just been said to him. Eventually, his eyes widened.

"Shit."

Ryou smiled at them, and went to retrieve the bag he had purchased, containing two lollypops the size of a face and two 30-centimetre high chocolate bunnies that he had got for the darker pair, knowing full well that they would forget.

The four sat around the mini-bar, in Duke's bedroom, becoming increasingly sleepy with the alcohol, (or in Ryou's case simple the hassle and jet-lag) the warmth of the room and the late time. Malik lay down, not sober enough to care that he was resting his head on Ryou's legs, and said head-rest stroked the blonde's hair sleepily, eyes closed.

Marik and Bakura drifted away leaning against each other, lollypops in mouth, for the entire world like little children, at about half five in the morning. After an hour or so Ryou moved, half-asleep, to lie next to Malik, so he was cuddled against the blondes front, and about an hour after that, when the sun was starting to show through the small, circular plane window, Marik got up and closed the shutter, then lay Bakura down and promptly fell asleep on his lover's stomach.

They slept on long after they had landed. The pilot had considered waking them up, but since he was used to Duke Devlin's morning mood swings (and these four seemed even more eccentric) he decided to leave them, instead going back to his own small room on the plane and falling asleep.

The plane was quiet until around four in the afternoon, when Ryou woke up with a start.

"Bloody hell!"

Malik, who of course was woken as well by Ryou's sudden movement, blushed at the proximity he and Ryou had slept in, and sat up.

"What's up?"

"We've slept for about eleven hours."

Malik blinked, and rubbed the blossoming headache at the base of his skull.

"You woke me up for that?"

There was a long pause, both of them staring at the darker pair, Bakura still with lollypop in mouth, Marik drooling. Malik spoke first.

"I vote you wake them."

"Why me?"

"You're prettier. They're less likely to hurt you."

Ryou pouted.

"You're pretty too!"

"Yeah, but you've got the whole innocent thing going on."

Malik paused, and then his eyes widened and he smirked.

"Hey, you think I'm pretty?"

Ryou blushed slightly, and was instantly glad that it was shadowy in the room from the window shutters.

"Yeah, you are."

Malik's smirk, if possible, grew wider.

"I'm still not waking them up, though."

Malik groaned.

"Please? You're all innocent and stuff, and they feel bad about yelling at you."

"Whaaz-at? Why'ya yelling?"

Marik was rubbing at the corners of his eyes with his fists, glaring at them both. He sat up, then immediately rubbed his head, moaning.

"Arrgh. Fuckin' head. Oi! 'Kura! If I have to be awake at this god-forsaken hour, so do you. God, it's fuckin' early. Why'd ya have to be so loud?"

Ryou tapped his watch cautiously.

"Errm, Marik? It's quarter past four?"

"Whaa? I thought we went to bed at five?"

"Four in the _afternoon. _Not really that early."

Marik rolled his eyes.

"Every hour is godforsaken when I have a hangover. Where are we, anyway?"

Ryou rolled his eyes.

"How should I know? You planned it, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Where is the list?"

Malik's eyes bulged.

"You have a list?"

"Yeah. I thought something through. Shocked?"

Marik pulled out a scuffed looking piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and stared at it, clearly trying to work it our through a hangover. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he poked Bakura hard in the ribs.

Bakura woke with a jolt, his lollypop falling out of his mouth.

"What the fuck was that for?"

"We're here!"

Bakura looked up at him patronisingly, which was quite impressive considering he was lying on the floor with a lollypop stuck to his chin and his hair stuck out even more erratically than normal.

"It would help if you told me where 'here' is, wouldn't it now?"

"Amsterdam!"

_A little while later_

Marik and Bakura were getting slightly worried. They had taken a taxi straight to the small, pretty little hotel, their hangovers too bad for them to even consider walking, which was what Ryou wanted to do. Malik, who was at the point where he would actually do anything for some time alone with Ryou, had braved the walk.

But the hotel was not far from the airport, and Ryou and Malik had still not arrived. Ryou was not the kind to get lost, especially since he had acquired a map of the area from a man at the airport. Ryou was especially good at things like that- a smile and a 'please' got him most things he wanted. The man at the information desk had even circled the road the hotel was on.

And yet, they still had not arrived.

Bakura began to fidget.

_Just previously, not that far away_

Malik and Ryou wandered down the streets, and Malik was trying very hard not to glance over at the smaller boy next to him. The blonde had his hands in his pockets, and his eyes as much on the sky as he could manage.

The reason they were late was because Ryou wanted to go the long way, to wander through the streets and along the nearby canal, and Malik was quite happy to go along with him. After a while, they decided they should probably be heading back, but were soon distracted again.

Around a corner, they came across a tulip stand.

It was small and painted green, and the paint was peeling and flaking. There were buckets filled with tulips in front of it, and the flowers were in many colours, reds, oranges, yellows, whites and pinks, and the man who was working there had a cheerful smile and little wrinkles around his eyes. It was clearly a tourist enterprise, but Ryou didn't care.

Ryou stared longingly at the flowers, and the man noticed, and spoke in heavily accented English.

"Three euro a bunch, young sir. Any colour, or mix 'em if you like. Only three euro a bunch."

Ryou smiled, knowing his money was in his bag, which he had put in the taxi that Bakura and Marik had taken, so he didn't have to carry it.

"No, tha-"

He was interrupted.

"One bunch, please. Yellow."

Malik exchanged his coins for the flowers, and they continued down the street. After a few seconds, Malik thrust the flowers in Ryou's direction.

"Here. There… errm, well, they're for you."

Ryou looked up at him, surprised.

"Oh…thanks."

Malik was blushing.

"Don't mention it," he muttered.

They continued on in silence, Ryou stroking a flower delicately.

"Why yellow?" he asked abruptly.

"What?" Malik was startled.

"Why yellow?"

"It's your favourite colour, isn't it?

Ryou blinked.

"Yeah. I didn't know you knew that."

Malik shrugged, still blushing. Ryou looked down at the flowers, smiling.

"They remind me of your hair."

It was Malik's turn to be surprised, and slightly confused.

"What?"

Ryou grinned happily, and repeated himself.

"They remind me of your hair."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Why shouldn't it be?"

"Blonde hair isn't normally described as yellow."

"Oh… sorry."

"Don't apologise."

"Huh?"

There was a long pause.

"I didn't say that I minded. If you think it's yellow, then that's okay."

Ryou smiled.

"I like yellow."

Malik smirked.

"Is my hair pretty as well, then?"

"Of course."

A few minutes later, they arrived at the hotel to meet the other two who were a touch bemused, and who had no idea why Ryou would want flowers, but let him put them in water in his room before they went out.

And where did they go?

To drink, because Marik and Bakura had fully embraced the 'hair of the dog' method of drinking- a.k.a. the only known cure for a hangover that was fun- go out and drink some more.

And it was Amsterdam, after all. Where better?

The bar they chose was cheap and cheerful, and Ryou made the very conscious decision to get very, very, drunk. He had restrained himself in Dublin, and the opportunity had not presented itself in Belgium… So now, out of the combination of an unspoken and quite irritating pressure from Marik, and equally annoying protective streak from Bakura and a strange wish to lose his inhibitions near Malik, he'd made up his mind.

He was going to get absolutely trashed.

And he didn't even care that it was a Thursday.

_Several hours later_

The bar was buzzing in a very typical three-day national bank holiday way, and a happy glow had settled around Ryou's consciousness. Bakura and Marik were dancing, surrounded by a sea of heated bodies, and Malik was buying in the drinks. He was vaguely aware that someone had sat down beside him. A hand settled on his knee, and he felt a nose nudge his cheekbone.

He turned to see an extremely drunk man sitting very close to him, grinning. He had long blonde hair and wide brown eyes, and was both very attractive and very drunk.

"Hey there, sweet-heart."

There was a clink of glasses placed on a table.

"You having a good nigh-"

He was cut off swiftly by a hand on his shoulder which spun him around, placing him face to face with a very angry looking Egyptian, who was glowering like someone had just kept his yami away from a shiny object he liked.

The other blond stood up, scowling, and pushed Malik in the chest, hard.

"Oooh," muttered Ryou in a glaze, "That was a bad idea."

Malik stared down at the palms that were still on his chest.

He looked up.

And then he punched the guy in the jaw.

He turned to Ryou, pulling him up. He called over to the other two, who were standing nearby, laughing. They followed him out, struggling to breathe through the laughter. Malik got out of the crowded bar first, pulling Ryou behind him, and the four of them gathered on the street.

"Nice one hikari," sniggered Marik, "but where do you intend to go now?"

Bakura was staring down the canal.

"Let's head that way," he said in a drunkenly dreamy way. "It looks pretty."

Further down the canal lights were shining on the black water, making the silky waters glow. It did indeed look very pretty. Strains of music floated across the water, in an almost enticing way.

The lights were red.

Ryou smiled.

He was feeling rather adventurous, and rather happy. He was pretty sure he wouldn't remember much in the morning, but he figured he'd have to do that at some point in his life. He set off after the two yami's along the canal bank, only turning around to see where Malik was. He slowed to let him catch up.

They wandered along the bank, swaying slightly, leaning on each other for support.

"Hey, Malik?"

"Uh?"

"Why'd y'do that?"

"What?"

"Hit that guy?"

"Uh," he paused, then suddenly grinned. "I was defending your honour!"

"Aw! Ain't that sweet?"

Ryou hugged him around the neck, standing on his tip-toes to reach up and peck him on the lips. He had only intended to do it in a friendly way, but once he'd done it the tiny level of sobriety left in him froze, and he stood there, lips pressed against Malik's, for perhaps a second too long, before he pulled slowly away.

"I... I didn-"

He was cut off as he was pulled back to the blond, who crushed their lips together, his hands on Ryou's face, tilting it upwards. It lasted only a moment, before they broke apart again, and they stared at each other for a moment.

"Hurry up, you two. We're nearly there!"

They snapped out of their silence, staring up the path, before letting the haze of alcohol settle again, and running to catch up with them.

_A couple of hours later_

Marik had disappeared soon after they arrived in the red light district, and no one was sure where he had gone, only that there was no doubt he'd find them again. If Marik wanted something, the universe was too scared to keep it from him. Their drunken wanderings had lead them through several different bars, and they were significantly drunker, making said wanderings even more erratic than was previously thought possible.

Bakura stood in the middle of the street, with the canal on one side and a long promenade of buildings on the other. He was watching the girls in the windows, each in their red-lit rooms, standing provocatively, waiting for customers. The one in particular that he was staring at had curly dark hair, had devil horns, and looked extremely bored.

He didn't really blame her.

Wandering over to the window she stood in, he waved at her. She quirked an eyebrow and beckoned. He grinned, in a very Bakura way: full of malice and the promise of mayhem, with just a hint of fang. He looked down at the lock that held the sash window, and waved his hand at it.

The metal melted.

Bakura sighed in pleasure. Shadow magic was just so rewarding.

The girl was staring down at him in bewilderment. He threw the sash up, and offered her his hand.

"You look bored?"

"Are you hiring me?"

"Only in a certain sense."

"Fair enough."

She spoke slanted, heavily accented English. Taking his hand, she jumped down.

"I'm going to get in trouble for this."

"Nah. I'll pay you double."

She linked his arm.

"Then I like those odds."

He led them over to the other two, who were sitting on a bench giggling. Marik had reappeared, and was sitting on the floor in front of them, cross-legged.

"Marik!"

Bakura ran over, dragging the girl behind him, and launched himself on Marik's back hugging him hard and pulling him backwards, so Bakura fell against the floor with Marik on top of him. The girl looked bemusedly down at them.

Bakura sat up, blinking, when Marik rolled off him. Something was wrong. Marik wasn't just drunk, he was acting strangely. He lay on the street, giggling, and there were no plushies to be seen.

Bakura gestured at the pair on the bench, smiling at the girl.

"The one that looks like a nice version of me is Ryou, and the blond is Malik. They're not fucking yet, but they should be."

She blinked.

"Fair enough."

Marik sat up suddenly, and waved at her. He caught sight of Bakura, who was now trying to stand up against a lamp-post, and jumped to his feet, tripping over to him. He hugged him round the waist, pulling him back to the ground, and Bakura started one of his favourite past-times: seeing how long it took Marik to moan when his neck was been ravaged.

When he'd managed it, he grinned up at the girl.

"And this is my boyfriend, Marik. He looks like the nastier version of Malik, am I right?"

She stared around in suspicion.

"So, let me get this straight. All four of you are gay as fruit bats, and you've hired a prostitute? Am I here for the fifth wheel role, or something?"

"Nahh. You just looked bored, so I figured you'd want a break. Besides…" at this, Bakura struggled to his feet, and sauntered over to her with a glint in his eye. "I liked your horns."

With that, he swiped the horns from her hair, shoved them on his own wild locks, and linked her arm.

"Let's go!"

Ryou wandered over, and linked the girl's other arm, smiling up at her.

"They're trying to corrupt me you know," he whispered in what he apparently thought was a quiet voice. "It's working!"

And then the five of them were off, to paint the town figuratively red, although that wasn't hard in this area. None of them would remember much the next morning, but it was true that at around two in the morning there was a loud splash as a certain blond hikari was thrown into the water by his rather drunk companions.

_(I don't want criticism about the themes in this chapter, please. I'm sorry if anyone takes offence, and I'm not approving prostitution, drug use or binge drinking, but c'est la vie, unfortunately. Please don't slate me about it. Enjoy!)_


	10. Chapter Nine: Rome

Chapter Nine

Rome

History, rain and too many old acquaintances

_(This chapter serves as a chance for me to write in unnecessary cameo roles. It feels like forever since I've written Seto or Duke into this, and to be honest, I bloody want to.)_

Hangovers were a thing of misery.

Only Malik, having sobered up by his dip in the canal, remembered anything of the night before, and he was refusing to divulge the information that was unique to his- admittedly blurry- mind. The rest sat on the plane seats in silence, dozing, waiting for the plane to land.

Malik smirked to himself.

I was probably lucky that he'd sobered up- otherwise, there was no way they would have managed to get back to the aeroplane. They'd tried the hotel first, but as that branch of the Devlin hotel was a small place, run by a family who lived on the top floor, it had been locked and bolted by four in the morning, when they'd struggled back. Luckily, he remembered the way back to the airport, and locating the window of the pilot's room, they'd managed to wake him to let them in.

He had to admit, his memory was foggy. He remembered hitting the guy in the jaw, the unbridled jealousy- especially at the fact that Ryou was not pushing the man's hand off his leg- had not mixed well with the alcohol. He'd had to pay the red-light district girl at a quarter to three when she hailed a taxi, minus her horns, which still lay haphazardly tangled in Bakura's hair. They probably wouldn't be coming out any time soon, either. The night had passed in a blur of bright lights, dark waters and an unmatched _closeness_ to Ryou, which he could not quite explain.

The plane touched down with a bump that made them all wince.

Marik stood up, and stretched.

"We're here."

"No shit. Where is here this time?"

Marik smiled at his other half.

"Do not sound so worried, Malik. This is stop is simply an excuse for Bakura to bitch about how the Egyptians were superior over all other ancient races."

"Damn right," muttered Bakura.

Marik grinned as they stepped out onto the metal stairs running down to the tarmac.

"I give you Rome, my friends."

_Later, after a good few painkillers and cups of coffee_

The four stood in the Coliseum, with varying degrees of curiosity on their faces. Ryou looked enthralled by the guide book he was nose deep in, and even Malik, scanning the pages over Ryou's shoulder, looked vaguely interested. Marik was enjoying himself throwing pebbles at tourists, an irritation to them that was made worse by the fact that they did not know where the missiles were coming from. Bakura was leaning on a rail, overlooking the circular central of the stadium where the floor used to be.

"Pah. The Romans consider this their greatest achievement? It's falling apart! Take the pyramids, the sphinx… still intact."

"Not really. And think of the Alexander lighthouse. That'd disappeared."

Bakura glared.

"Shut up Ryou. And I've told you enough times that the lighthouse doesn't count, it was way after my time."

"It was aincient Egypt."

"Yeah, but practically the _Greek_ era."

"You're just being picky."

Bakura chose to ignore this.

"You see, the Egyptians, despite coming before the Romans, were obviously more civilized. We never forced people to fight each other for our own entertainment."

Ryou glanced upwards again.

"No, you just made them build ridiculously sized graves."

Bakura visibly bristled.

"Hey. Not my graves."

Ryou smiled apologetically.

"Yeah, you just robbed them. An ancient Robin Hood?"

"Damn right."

After they had their fill of architecture, classical history, bitching and annoying tourists, they wandered off. They walked down streets, not going in any particular direction, for an hour or so, the air helping their headaches a little.

Due to traditional Mediterranean attitude, they were taking their time here, not really doing much at all.

The four stopped in a square. The floor was paved with large stones, and several restaurants had striped awnings out over the pavements, with tables scattered over the pavements, huddled under large, brightly coloured umbrellas, busy even in the cloudy but warm weather. There was a large bronze stature in the middle. Ryou smiled serenely up at the overcast sky. The other three were surprised at how quickly he'd gotten over his hangover.

"So Ryou, are you more excited about the ice-cream, the Italian boys or the prospect of ever more history?"

Ryou blushed.

"Be quiet, Bakura. It's an obvious answer."

"Indeed."

Marik smirked.

"Well, I only came for the food. Malik, you're going to have to follow Ryou around and do all other the history stuff, not that you'd mind, because me and Bakura are getting more coffee and food. We'll be in that place. Come find us later, okay?"

With that, and a lewd wink and Malik, Marik dragged Bakura over to one of the restaurants, leaving the other two in the middle of the square.

Ryou turned to the other, smiling.

"C'mon. When in Rome-"

"Do as the Romans do?"

Ryou smiled sweetly.

"Well, yeah, but I also want to be a nerd, so lets go find the metro station."

They found one eventually, and after spending a good few minutes trying to work out where they were going, they ended up on a cramped train, standing and clinging on to the metal poles. With each lurch as the train stopped and started, they staggered to and fro. Ryou landed against Malik's chest, one palm on the blonde's shirt to balance himself. There was a slightly embarrassed moment as they righted themselves, soon passed when they had to throw themselves out of the door before it left.

They wandered for hours, seeing the Palatine and the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps and the Trevi fountain, Ryou with intense enthusiasm, Malik with slightly less so. They made good use of their day-use metro tickets, and Malik stared in awe at the amount of mopeds dodging through the thick traffic. By around five they decided to head back.

They were walking down a road when they heard a shout.

"Hey! Ryou!"

The pair turned to see a see a large black car that was conspicuous on the crowded streets by its gleaming bodywork and tinted windows. Someone was leaning out of the back window, waving. His hair was long and black, and he was wearing a red headband.

"Duke!"

"Jump in! I'll give you a lift!"

Malik groaned as the car pulled up next to them and the back door opened. Ryou did indeed 'jump' in, followed much less enthusiastically by Malik. The car was luxurious and cool, with two rows of seats facing each other, the chauffer hidden from view by a panel of darkened glass. The seats were soft leather, and Devlin was sitting on one, having pulled Ryou down next to him. Malik took a seat stiffly on the other bench, scowling, just as Ryou was telling Devlin where to take them.

"So what are you doing here, Duke?" asked Ryou.

"Business," Duke breezed, smiling at Ryou. "How is your trip going?"

His face changed abruptly as he glanced at Malik, turning from an almost hungry smile to a cautious frown. His mouth twitched into what could almost be a smirk, and he turned back to Ryou, who was listing all the places they'd been so far.

"And after Sydney we went to Vegas, then Dublin, then London- because I'm from there-"

"Of course. I always did love British accents."

"And then Paris-"

"The city of love, my dear."

"And then Belgium, then Amsterdam, and now here."

"And have all of your hotels been up to scratch?

"Oh, they've been lovely."

"I'd be happy to file any complaints you've had… perhaps you can show me where the faults are, especially in the bedrooms…"

There was a loud cough from Malik, whose frown had deepened. He sat there in sullen silence as the other two chattered away, deeply jealous and angry. It took them about fifteen minutes to get back to the square, in which time Ryou and Duke's animated conversation had moved on to literature, and conversation that Malik found difficult to join in with. When they arrived, Malik jumped out first, as if nauseated by the very presence of Duke Devlin.

Bakura and Marik looked up from their seats outside one of the cafes, staring at them in curiosity. They saw first the large black car, then the angry Malik. Just as their curiosity peaked, they saw the reason. Duke had linked Ryou's arm, and was leaning close to him.

Bakura growled under his breath.

The first of many drops of rain pattered onto the stone floor of the square.

Marik looked over at Bakura, then at his angry lighter half, and grabbed a steak knife from the finished plates on the table next to them.

Duke glanced over at them, eyes wide.

The yamis stood purposefully at their table, waving over to the other two with their typical crazed smiles that promised nothing but pain, misery and a lot of blood as Malik took a seat next to them.

Duke eyed the knife as Bakura smirked a grin that was both cruel and rather pleased with itself.

"Hey, Duke?"

Duke took a step away from Ryou, and opened the door of his car.

"Yeah?"

"Fancy a haircut?"

The knife glistened from the rain, Bakura's grin reflected in it.

"I'll see you later, Ryou," he muttered, and got into his car.

Ryou went to join the yamis and Malik at the table, who had already ordered himself a beer. An orange juice sat next to his own glass, and he glared down at the table cloth with anger.

Ryou took the seat next to him.

"Is this juice for me?"

A nod was his only reply.

Bakura and Marik exchanged a glance, before leaning back and addressing Ryou.

"So why the hell were you with him?"

Ryou shrugged and smiled.

"He saw us in the street and offered us a lift, that's all."

The four lapsed into silence as the rain continued to fall, growing heavier with each passing moment, as did the atmosphere between the four. The air was hot and became more humid.

A couple wandered across the square, hand in hand, under a large umbrella. The girl, who was wearing a skirt cut to just above knee length with brightly coloured tights glanced over at them and waved. The male stared at them, and tried to pull her away.

"Hey, it's Kaiba and his little girlfriend!"

Bakura was half way out of his seat before they reached the pavement café where they sat under huge umbrellas. Kaiba was failing in his attempt to pull her out of the square, obviously cursing them under his breath.

"Hey, you're the friends of Seto's from Paris, aren't you?"

"Oh yes, we're all good friends of Seto's."

Marik joined in the conversation.

"Did Seto ever tell you about the time we joined in his nice little tournament? You should ask him about his blimp…"

Seto growled. Had Ryou not seen him do it, its ferocity and anger would have lead him to presume that it was from Bakura. He nodded stiffly at them, before pulling the girl off, who was waving at them.

Ryou watched them leave with a small smile on his face.

"How much time is he taking off work for this girl?"

"He'll have brought a laptop, I'd put money on it."

"True. Wonder why she puts up with him."

They went back into silence again.

Ryou shifted uneasily in his seat as Malik ordered another beer. He was starting to become increasingly worried about the alcohol consumption of his friends. He stretched, working out the knots in his shoulders.

"Hey, guys? I'm going to go for a walk."

Bakura looked up.

"You're not going alone."

It was a statement, not a question.

"Well you come with me then."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Rain. It's not right. Malik will go with you, wont you Malik?"

He glared at the blonde, as if daring him to say no. Without a word Malik stood up and walked off, leaving Ryou behind. Ryou sighed, waved at the other two, and ran to catch up with the blonde.

Bakura and Marik shook their heads as the walked off.

"All this sexual tension is killing me."

"I give it a week," muttered Bakura.

"No, it'll take them at least two to fuck," argued Marik, rolling his eyes.

"Pfft. That's what you said about the Pharaoh and his midget, too."

_With the other two_

They walked without talking for a while, both getting slowly damper as the rain continued to fall. Ryou felt increasingly uneasy as the quiet continued, as if it were growing something he did not quite understand. Eventually, he broke the silence.

"Are you angry at me?"

"Why should I be?"

"I don't know, but you seem it."

There was another long pause, and Ryou had resigned himself to a walk devoid of conversation when Malik spoke.

"Do you just not notice how Devlin hits on you?"

His tone was exasperated, irritated.

"What?"

"No, of course you wouldn't. You… I mean, you're not… interested in him, are you?"

"I… Duke? Oh no, not like that."

There was an audible sigh of relief.

"I see."

"No, there is someone else I care about, quite a lot actually."

They had stopped walking by this time, and Malik moved to face Ryou, scrutinising his face. A little stream of rain water rolled down his cheek, and his hair sat flatter against his head. He self-consciously ruffled the white hair and Malik stared at him, almost daring Ryou to lie. The blonde found himself almost hypnotised by the brown eyes he was staring into.

Ryou looked back, questioning the violet eyes, searching their depth for some hidden meaning. The spikes of his blonde hair were starting to dip downwards because of the rain, and there was a small smirk starting to twitch at the corner of his mouth. He lifted a hand, and pushed a tendril of Ryou's hair away from his face.

"I'm glad you don't like him. I wouldn't want to you to."

"Why?"

There was no reply, just a slight extension of the smirk.

"You don't remember much of last night, do you?"

Ryou started.

"No, not really. I… I remember some things, but…"

He left the sentence hanging, his eyes warm with a smile and a half-forgotten memory, blurred by uncertainness and alcohol.

Malik smiled properly then, and hugged Ryou to him with one arm looped around the others shoulders. The warmth of the others skin was felt through their damp clothes, and Ryou blinked in surprise as Malik kissed Ryou on the forehead, lightly, tasting the rain on his skin. It was short and chaste, sweet and unexpected, and they pulled apart afterwards.

"C'mon," muttered Malik, "We'd best be heading back."

Their hands touched briefly as they walked back the way they came, and they glanced at each other, smiling softly, each hiding certain secrets.

_Mm. Not sure if this wasn't too cheesy. Ah, well. Here is Rome. Before you question it, this is not their last night in Italy, they are spending two days here, just not in the way Marik planned. Although, judging by Marik's plans, I wouldn't trust them anyway. _

_Thanks to Linzy, whose review made me smile, and to ambercharae, whose constant reviews have got me this far, and I don't think I've thanked her for it yet. Heads up to mystralwind, who is consistantly lovely. Cheers to the three of you!_


	11. Chapter Ten: Verona

Chapter Ten

Verona

Romeo, Juliet and a lot of confusion

"For the love of Ra, will you put that stupid book _down _before I throw it off the plane?"

Things were not going smoothly on the brief flight they had taken impromptu from Rome. There had been enough arguments to begin with about whether it was even worth taking the plane- it took less time on the Eurostar to get to their destination, and since they were not even staying in a hotel, Ryou thought it was pointless to fly.

Bakura just thought it was pointless to interrupt his holiday with Ryou's automatically labelled 'idiotic' idea.

Marik and Malik were staying out of the argument: Malik out of tact, and Marik because he was too busy dozing to sleep on the chairs, jet lag taking its toll on his body. It was probably also this that made Bakura so irate and Ryou so much more stubborn than usual. Malik watched the argument, and broke his silence and the tension after having so far kept silent.

"Why do you want to go to Verona so much, anyway?"

Ryou glared at Malik, and considered getting angry at the blonde, but realised that he was simply curious, not annoyed at having to go, or some how taking Bakura's side. No, Malik was simply being his usual stance in the proverbial 'dead man's land'. The angry expression fell off the white-haired boys face, replaced with one that was not quite sadness, and not quite nostalgia, but somewhere in between.

Marik stirred, and sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to catch up with the conversation and the obvious tension in the plane.

Ryou was silent for a while longer, until the others believed he wasn't going to answer. However, after a while he lifted up the book he had been reading, showing them the cover. The title was written in gold cursive, and the picture was bright, cartoon-ish in nature.

It was a children's version of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'.

He smiled vaguely at them, his eyes focusing out of the window.

"It's set in Verona, and it was my sister's favourite bedtime story, before."

There was silence for a moment.

"Ahh, shit, Ryou. I'm sorry."

The three stared at Bakura, Marik's mouth hanging open in shock. It had to have been the first time any of them had heard him apologise properly, and mean it. It was quite a shock to them all, to hear that, and it was probably the lack of sleep.

Ryou accepted the apology graciously, but the sad look didn't leave his face until they had alighted the plane, exited the airport and were wandering the streets of Verona. Once they were there, Ryou's look of despondency was replaced with an overjoyed look that made Bakura feel quite bad he had ever made an issue of spending their second day in Italy in the home of the fictional Montagues and Capulets.

The day was warm, the sun was bright, and they all started to feel a little more cheerful.

They lost Ryou shortly after.

Later, they agreed that the blame lay directly on Marik, since he was the one who insisted on stopping and examining a menu in the window of a small restaurant, which, to Marik's credit, did look exceedingly good for exceedingly good value. Marik would claim that it was the fault of Malik: if he had not argued about the price of the beer they would not have stopped so long, and Bakura simply blamed them both because as far as he was concerned, they were both being idiots anyway.

Expecting Ryou to stop and wait, they argued about whether they had time to eat and other such petty things, the world fading to a blur of unimportance in their heads, and this soon turned to bickering about the location of their next destination, which was even more frustrating to them as Marik was keeping it even more of a closely guarded secret from them all than normal.

Marik and Bakura quickly got to bickering about this, and it took quite a while for Malik to notice Ryou had wandered off, and he was quite surprised by Bakura's reaction to it.

"Shit! He must still be mad at me from earlier, and now look what I've done… I've driven him away! He's out there now, wandering the streets… and, oh Ra, no one could resist him, he'll be stolen and sold or kidnapped or killed, and it'll all be my fault, but if I ever find the person who did it to them they're gonna pa-"

He was broken off from his hysterical rampage by the realisation that Malik had already run off in the direction Ryou had been heading.

Pulling a more unconcerned Marik behind him, the hysterical yami bolted after Malik.

Several streets away, Ryou was not particularly worried that he had lost his friends. _'They,_' he mused, _'can take care of themselves'. _In fact, as far as Ryou was concerned, it couldn't have turned out any better than it had, since now he got to explore the city without their complaints.

'_Knowing them, they've just found a bar near the airport and won't worry about me in the slightest. In fact, they'd be happier there than with me, anyway.'_

It wasn't just that Bakura had left him, he was used to his yami doing things like that. It was, for a reason that he wasn't quite willing to admit to himself, the idea of _Malik_ leaving him that really upset him.

He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind, however, as he wandered through the quintessential Italian streets, because, as far as he was concerned, today was for _her_.

They caught up with him eventually, of course, but it did take them a couple of hours and a lot of panicking and harassing passers-by on the streets to do so.

It took Marik nearly an hour to calm Bakura and Malik down, since the two had long since banished rationality in their search for Ryou. Marik himself was almost scared by the psychopathic looks of anger in both their eyes, and he certainly would not have liked to be anyone who even laid a finger on their precious Ryou.

Marik, for once, found himself to be the rational one, and he tried to persuade them that Ryou probably just wanted some time to think about his sister, but that did little good, because, as Malik pointed out;

"You think a murderer would care about whether or not he's contemplating his dead sister?"

"You two are being over dramatic. He'll be fine."

An argument soon broke out between Malik and Bakura, born of frustration, jet lag and worry. Standing in the streets of Verona, yelling at each other, they received quite a few strange looks from passers-by.

"You fucking stupid… urgh, why did you have to yell at him so much for reading a freakin' book?"

"It's hardly my fault! How the fuck was I supposed to know, anyway?"

"'Cause you're his yami, maybe? You shared a body for years- surely you would have picked _something _up if you were ever bothered about him!"

Bakura's eyes narrowed.

"Oh, and I suppo-"

Bakura was cut off mid-rant by Marik, who glared at both of them, before hissing: "You think that _this_ is helping?"

The voice of relative reason soon took over, and it wasn't long before Malik and Bakura were grabbing passers-by by their shirt collars and demanding to know if they had seen Ryou. This had little effect, seeing as how most of the quizzical Italians didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

Half an hour later and still a hikari short, they were beginning to loose hope. Bakura and Malik were now looking completely terrified, and even Marik was loosing his cool.

Turning a corner, they saw him.

He was sat on a bench in a small square, his legs crossed on the bench and his eyes focused on a statue in the middle of the square. The sun was shining on his face and his hair was almost glowing in the light. He was getting many admiring glances from the Italian teenagers both male and female, but he was unaware of this, his large brown eyes fixed unchangingly on the statue. A small smile haunted the corners of his mouth, faint veins showing up delicately through the pale skin of his neck.

He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing Malik had ever seen.

The group almost ran over to him, where he was nearly knocked over by a still-hysterical Bakura, who hugged him and apologised and promised he'd never get mad again and then begged forgiveness and then begged that his hikari would never leave, all in the same breath, whilst Ryou just sat there, awkwardly patting Bakura's head, completely bemused.

It took several more minutes to console Bakura, who still hadn't let go of Ryou, and once they did, the yami decided that they all needed a drink, and he was quite vocal to assure the others that it should be very strong.

As they walked down the street, Marik and Bakura in front, with Bakura checking over his shoulder every thirty seconds, and Malik and Ryou behind, Ryou couldn't help but notice the silence that came between them. Although it was true that Malik was not overly conversational, Ryou couldn't help but worry that he'd annoyed his friend. To be fair, he argued with himself, as far as Malik might be concerned, Ryou had left them. He'd be annoyed at himself if he were the blonde as well. Taking a deep breath, Ryou broke the silence.

"I didn't mean to leave you all like that, you know. I… I'm sorry, Malik."

Malik looked at him, an unreadable expression in his eyes.

"You should be."

Ryou felt his heart sink. So his friend really was angry, although Ryou couldn't blame him. He stared at the ground, unwilling to look at Malik.

'_Damn,'_ he thought to himself, _'what am I going to do now?'_

He felt a slight pressure on his shoulder, and when he glanced up, he realised the other was leaning companionably against his shoulder. Ryou felt an unaccustomed flutter across the pit of his stomach, and leant back, applying just the slightest amount of pressure back.

Malik's voice, when he spoke again, wasn't angry.

"Don't ever make me worry like that again. I thought we might have lost you for good for a while. You shouldn't make me… make us scared like that, okay?"

Now it was Malik's turn to stare at the ground in embarrassment as Ryou looked up, feeling a lot better now. They almost walked into the backs of their yamis, who had stopped outside the restaurant that had caused the problems to begin with. According to Bakura's warped logic, it only made sense to have their drink there, and then go back to the plane.

After seeing how angry an emotional Bakura could get, they decided not to argue with him.

When they eventually boarded the plane again, only to find that Marik still would not tell them where they were going next, they all took comfort with various luxuries. Bakura headed straight for the mini-bar, claiming he only wanted to eat the peanuts, and Malik announced he would try out the planes shower, since all of them had opted to use the hotel ones since the start.

Marik, a little annoyed because everyone else was annoyed at him, as he wouldn't even give them even so much as a hint as to where they were going, went to talk to the pilot before he flopped out on a row of seats, the armrests up, and went to sleep.

When Malik emerged, wearing his trousers, no shirt and a towel wrapped around his shoulders, he saw Ryou sitting on the floor, looking a little despondent.

"What's up?"

He stood in front of him, leaning against the wall of the plane. Ryou looked at the ground.

"It's nothing. I'm just annoyed at myself."

"Why?"

"It sounds stupid."

"Nah, go on."

Ryou averted his gaze to a bag next to him, which was a cream carrier bag that Malik recognised to be the one from the chocolate shop they had visited, which seemed like it was much longer ago than it was.

"I always eat it all really quickly, you know? And this time I promised I wouldn't, that I'd make it last the whole trip, but I didn't. And now I'm annoyed and hungry and don't have any."

"I see."

"You think I'm being an idiot."

"A little."

Malik walked off, and Ryou leant his head back in silent frustration. A few seconds later. Something cream waved in front of his face, and his head snapped back up to see it.

It was another bag from the chocolate shop.

Malik's bag… carried by… Malik, who was smiling down at him with his eyebrows raised slightly.

"I knew you'd do that, so here. I bought this for you while we were there, so you'd have some when you did eat it all."

He dropped the bag at Ryou's feet, and wandered off.

Ryou watched him walk away, smiling. The wiry muscle moved slightly on his tanned back, and the white towel stood out as a harsh contrast to the skin, covering half of the carvings on his back. Ryou looked at those inquisitively, wondering what the scar tissue would feel like.

His eyes widened slightly, and, blushing, he looked away quickly, down at his new chocolate.

xxx

_Feh. Just got home from a trip to Italy, so figured I just make an update. Bloody tired though. Only four more chapters to go now… who wants to place a guess where they are going next? Giving a yell to Silenced Shadows, because she's ever lovely, and to ambercharae and mystralwind for their never ending support. Geez. I'd love some crit on how everyone thinks this is panning out, if you think I'm dragging it out too much, etc. Prize for who can guess where they're going next._


	12. Chapter Eleven: Cairo

Greece? Sorry guys, you were well off.

Chapter Eleven

Cairo

The awkwardness of siblings, deserts, and sharing rooms

They waited out the plane flight with high expectations. Marik was flatly refusing to tell them where they were going, because apparently it was surprise. This both excited and worried Ryou, but he decided not to think about it, and just trust the pilot not to land them on something Marik might consider fun, like a volcano, or interesting, like in an area closed for nuclear activity.

The four had shunned the idea of conventional seating. Instead, Marik had dragged all the pillows from Duke's bed and the linen cupboard and empty staff rooms (there were nearly thirty of the small staff bunkers in the underbelly of the plane, for Devlin's convenience) and he had thrown the duvet on the floor in front of the first bank of seats, then covering the duvet in all the pillows and other duvets from other rooms.

It looked, Ryou decided, a lot like a teenage girl's sleepover, which was worrying in itself.

This theory was added to by Bakura, who was curled up on the front bank of chairs, absentmindedly plaiting Ryou's hair, the white-haired hikari was leaning against the seats. Bakura was not good at playing with people's hair- he tugged and pulled and finished each little plait off with a knot, but it was an uncommon act of tenderness that his light was quite happy to sit through, even if his hair did end up looking a lot like a birds nest, and it had hurt like hell.

Marik was on the duvet, resting on Ryou's shins, which he had softened up with a fluffy heart-shaped pillow. He was lying on his chest, his hands folded on the pillow and his head in his hands. His calves and feet were in the air, for all the world a carefree teenage girl. They were talking quietly, so as not to wake Malik, who had curled up on a mound of cushions and pulled a spare duvet over him, and had promptly gone to sleep.

Ryou was entranced watching Malik. A long strand of his hair had fallen across his face, and every time he breathed out it fluttered away, before falling back across his face. He was, Ryou had decided some time ago, completely adorable.

Marik looked up at Ryou to ask him something, and immediately noticed the glazed expression on his face. He hadn't said anything for several minutes, and now Marik followed his gaze to the sleeping Malik, he realised why.

Marik smirked up at Bakura, who growled half-heartedly before turning back to his hikari's hair.

"Ryou?" Marik asked, and Ryou snapped back into focus, turning to Marik and smiling.

"Yeah?"

"Why do you keep staring at Malik?"

Ryou blushed a deep, dark red, and was suddenly unable to look Marik in the eye. Bakura stopped his plaiting, interested.

Ryou stuttered for a while, not making much sense, before sighing deeply and sinking down in his sitting position, still unable to meet the eyes of his companions. His hair fell across, hiding his face from view, as he stared at the floor.

Marik tried again.

"Do you like him?"

Ryou nodded, a nod that was almost impossible to differentiate from the soft movements of his hair. Marik grinned widely, but not unkindly.

"Cool."

Ryou looked up, still blushing. He looked confused.

"Cool? Is that all? You're not going to laugh or anything?"

Marik seemed to consider this for a minute, before smiling up at the perplexed boy that looked so much like his own partner. He grinned again.

"Nah."

Ryou looked immensely relieved.

They all dozed off after a while, Bakura curled up like a cat on the chairs, and they didn't wake until they heard the pilots voice over the intercom announcing their descent. Only Malik was still asleep as they dipped down into the country, neither Bakura or Ryou being able to guess where they were.

Shortly after this, Malik felt himself shaken awake.

"Hikari? We're here. Do you recognise the airport?"

Malik sat up, stretching, wincing as his elbows and knuckles cracked with an audible noise. He went over to a window, the one next to where Ryou was staring out of. He looked out. The sun was setting over an airport he knew very well.

His eyes sparkled as he turned back to Marik, who was grinning. Then, much to the surprise of everyone, even Malik himself, the smaller blonde threw himself on his yami, glomping him in joy.

Bakura was still confused.

"Where the fuck are we?"

Malik grinned at him.

"We're in Egypt, Bakura. We're _home._"

Despite the long flight, all four of them were energetic as they got out of their plane and went through the airport. At check-in, the official noted Malik's Egyptian passport and smiled at him.

"Welcome home, lad."

This was the most alive Ryou had ever seen him. He almost glowed in the artificial light, his eyes sparkling and his smile growing even wider as they walked out into the entrance and he saw who was waiting for him.

"Isis!" Malik yelled, and ran across the tiled floor into his sister's embrace.

"Malik," she laughed, hugging him to her tightly, "we've missed you so much!"

Malik was grinning uncontrollably now, but it slipped a notch as he asked "where is Odeon?"

Isis smiled down at him. "Don't worry so much. Our brother is travelling home himself now from a meeting in Alexandria about our museum, but he'll be back in an hour or so. He's very sorry he couldn't be here to welcome you back."

Her smile turned into a frown as the rest of the group arrived.

"Marik, Bakura. I hope you are well?" she asked this coldly, almost glaring at the two who were defiantly not her favourite people. And who could blame her, after all. Marik had tried to kill all the Ishtars at one time, and had killed their father (although he did deserve it) and Thief King Bakura had been her sworn enemy in a previous life, as well as the nemesis of the rest of the millennium item holders and their beloved Pharaoh. As well as this, he had joined forces with Marik to take over the world.

No, Isis did not like Bakura and Marik.

Not one bit.

She turned to Ryou, and her face immediately softened. She embraced him, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Ryou, dear Ryou! We've heard so much about you; it's a pleasure to meet you again, under more fortuitous circumstances!"

She was referring, of course, to the last time Ryou had been in Egypt, before Bakura had his own body and seen a few psychiatrists. Bakura groaned under his breath.

"Sweet Ra, she can't let it drop, can she?"

Marik raised one eyebrow.

"At least you didn't try to kill her."

Bakura smirked.

"Not in this life, anyway."

Isis was acting, Malik noticed, unusually friendly to Ryou, and he was a little perplexed why. Shaking his head, he decided to let it go- his sister was hardly normal, especially when it came to other people- going through puberty in a hole in the ground does that to you.

Isis soon had hailed a taxi for them, which would take them to their hotel. They left her with the promise of meeting her and Odeon for dinner later on, a task neither yami liked the sound of. Spending time with Isis and Odeon, they had decided a long time ago, was on par with being nice to Atem on their list of things they never wanted to do.

But, they soon realised, they didn't have much of a choice. Malik and Ryou can be surprisingly convincing when they want to be, especially armed with guilt-tricks and big sad looking eyes. And that is why, a couple of ours later, Marik, Malik, Isis, Ryou, Bakura and Odeon were sitting around a table, Isis and Odeon sipping white wine, and Bakura with red, much to Isis' disproval.

Odeon didn't seem to care about whether Bakura was drinking or not- he was the oldest there by several thousand years, after all. He seemed much more interested in examining Ryou, who was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable underneath this scrutiny.

It didn't take Malik long to notice, and once Odeon had realised that Malik knew, he at least had the grace to stop.

But you couldn't blame him, really, for being overprotective of his little brother. It's only natural, just as it is only natural to be a little cautious, especially if the said little brother had apparently fallen (because that is what his glowing letters certainly implied) for the reincarnation of the thief king Bakura- and the Ishtars had never been fond of the thief king or his present yami-form.

But there was something about Ryou that Odeon couldn't help but automatically trust. It was something, he reasoned, in his eyes, an innocence without a hint of deception, without a trace of cunning or planning.

Odeon smiled to himself as he watched Ryou from across the table as he said something to Malik, who laughed softly. The complete adoration in both of their eyes at that point, as they looked at each other for a second to long before looking away, blushing slightly, was enough to convince Odeon that he would have no qualms one day in the near future when he and his sister would receive some very happy news.

'_Now,'_ he thought, _'they just have to admit it to each other.'_

It had taken them longer than they anticipated to reach the Devin: Cairo, as Malik had insisted they stay later with his siblings, talking and catching up on news, so it was quite late when they arrived back at the hotel, too late to bother arguing about the mix up with the rooms.

Ryou sighed. Sometimes he thought that someone up there was mocking him. Just hours after he'd admitted his feelings towards the blonde wandering around the room (although, point given, he hadn't admitted it to him) he'd have to share a hotel room with him? To Ryou, that didn't seem fair.

He cursed the fact that the hotel had got the rooms wrong, so he had to share a double with him- even if they had to share a room, two single beds would have been so much more preferable- although he had to admit that it was surprisingly useful that Marik had even booked rooms in the first place.

Not that he didn't like having the time alone with Malik, nor the chance to watch him sleep, a sight that he'd recently discovered was very nice. It wasn't even the concept of sharing a double bed with him in weather he found very hot (although everyone else seemed to be okay, the bastards). It was more the inner argument he was having with himself.

Sensible Ryou was telling him to just carry on as normal. Impulsive Ryou (who at times looked a hell of a lot like Bakura) was telling him to jump the blondes very attractive bones and kiss the living daylights out of him.

Ryou was finding his inner battle hard to ignore.

Especially now Malik was wandering around a pair of dark green cotton pants that were far too big, and hung low around his hips. They were baggy down his legs, and pooled around his feet, making him look strangely childish and cute as hell.

The fact that he was topless was kind of hard to ignore, as well.

Malik seemed to feel the white-haired boy's eyes on him, and he turned to smile at Ryou, before finally seeming to decide what he was doing and sitting, cross-legged, at the end of the bed.

Ryou cursed himself inwardly. Why did he have such a damned well-defined stomach if he'd spent his whole life either in a hole, trying to take over the world or eating Ryou's cooking? How was that fair? And why did he look so damn comfortable? Why could he never be as calm and collected as Malik obviously was now?

It probably wouldn't have made him feel better, however, if he had found out the truth: that secretly, Malik was a bundle of nerves.

He swallowed down his nervousness, however, when Ryou looked up into his eyes and smiled a smile that was heart-wrenchingly gorgeous and made Malik feel slightly weak at the knees.

Not that that mattered, since he was sitting down, his addled brain didn't hesitate to tell him. He wasn't entirely able to convince himself that if he had been standing up when Ryou smiled like that, he wouldn't have needed to sit down immediately afterwards.

He smiled back at the other, a fleeting, slight one that was his norm.

"Is the weather affecting you? I'd have thought it would annoy you the most."

Ryou shifted uncomfortable beneath his large shirt, undeniably warm but unable to muster the courage to take it off and leave himself exposed in just his soft cotton trousers he would be sleeping in.

"Mmm. It's not too bad."

Malik nodded, more to himself than anything else.

"I thought we'd go see the pyramids tomorrow, and the Sphinx… I'm not sure how long Marik will want us to stay, but we'll try to fit in the Egyptian Antiquities museum too, you'll like that."

"It sounds good."

Malik risked a glance over at the other, swallowing nervously and trying to stop himself rambling.

"And maybe see the papyrus workers, too, if we have time, and I'd like to take you out on a boat on the Nile, it's pretty cool out their. There is so much we could do, though… I've done all the tourist attractions now, after having missed so much time, but if you don't like the sound of any of it, just say."

Ryou was smiling at him in amusement.

"Seriously. It all sounds lovely. I'm not sure how long our yami's can put up with us through."

Malik gave another flicker of a smile then.

"Are you sure you're not too hot? We could go out on the balcony, if you wanted- we're pretty high up, so there might be a breeze."

Ryou nodded in consent, and pulled himself off the bed. He pattered over to the double glass doors and opened them, letting the light breeze blow at the fine curtains, making them blow backwards and curl around his legs, making him look like he'd got caught in an extremely cheesy romantic scene. Which, in essence, he was. He turned back to Malik, who still hadn't moved.

"You coming?"

The blond followed him out, stopping only to swipe a bottle of water from the mini-bar- Devlin was playing, after all.

The balcony was quite narrow, and had a small bench and table, with a single chair. He contemplated the chair for half a second before realising he would have to cram past Ryou, seated on the bench, to reach it, so just sat down, a tad awkwardly, next to the other. To hide his slight discomfort he cracked open the lid of the water and took a swig, passing it to Ryou.

The air outside was defiantly cooler than it had been a few hours prior, the tale of the deserts painfully cold nights and fiercely hot days not as much of an urban myth as Ryou had once presumed.

Malik shivered slightly, now a little cold, as he was used to the sun and he had no shirt, the fine hairs on his arms standing on end. He pressed slightly closer to Ryou, trying to gather a little more warmth. In response, Ryou leant a little closer, and they both stayed that way for a few minutes before Ryou's head drooped down onto Malik's shoulder.

"Sorry," he mumbled, "M'sleepy."

Malik exhaled in response, happy for the warmth. After a while, the arm Ryou was leaning on started to go numb, and he spoke softly.

"Ryou, you awake?"

"Mmm. Just."

"Stand up for a sec?"

Ryou did, rubbing sleep from his eyes, too tired to argue. A breeze rolled across his body, and he started to feel a little chilly.

Two warm hands were then on his hips, and he was pulled back to sitting on the bench. Malik had put on leg up, stretched along the back, the other still on the floor, so his back was resting on the arm of the bench. He sat Ryou down between his legs, the smaller boy leaning back against his chest and placing his legs up on the bench so they lay against Malik's, and the sudden warmth rushed him, making him feel a little light headed. The blond wrapped his arms around the other from behind, securing him into the embrace, resting his chin on the others shoulder.

"Thanks, Malik," Ryou said, his eyes closed, a smile hovering on the corners of his mouth. He didn't hear an answer, but he didn't need one.

"Marik mentioned to me what you said on the plane, on the way here, you know."

Ryou's eye snapped back open, and he froze. He suddenly felt much more awake, and much more awkward.

He pulled out of Malik's arms, trying to fathom what on earth he could say. This had all seemed so easy when had thought about it earlier, but there was no exhilaration at Marik's news, only embarrassment and worry.

What to say?

The both of them started talking simultaneously as both found inspiration and courage at the same time.

"I wanted-"

"I was going to-"

Both stopped as abruptly as they had started, neither quite looking at each other. Malik's eyes were suddenly distant, Ryou staring out into space.

"You want to go inside? It's getting chilly."

"Uhuh."

Ryou followed the blond back in, watching his back, feeling again the strange and heavy urge to touch the scar tissue on his back, those carvings etched into the skin. He wanted to trace each line with his finger tips, to kiss each figure separately. He suddenly realised that he wanted to become something as immovable and permanent as the carvings, but he wanted to etch himself with comfort rather than pain.

They took their seats on either side of the bed, an awkward feeling laying down between them, a third figure in the bed, the pair of them bathed in the soft glow from one bedside table lamp.

"Did you mean it? What you said to Marik, I mean."

Ryou stared at the delicate patterns on the sheets.

"Uhuh."

There was another pause, pregnant with unspoken feelings.

Ryou was still finding the bedspread a much more attractive proposition to stare at. Risking a glance upwards, to his surprise he found that a blush was grazing Malik's cheeks, as well as his own. His eyes snapped back downwards, his hair falling in front of his eyes, shielding his face from view.

"Look at me."

He didn't.

"Please look at me."

Ryou still didn't quite dare. He really didn't have a clue what Malik's response would be, he couldn't read either his face or his tone of voice, but he was interrupted in his worry by a depression in the bed next to him as Malik moved over towards him.

Malik pushed Ryou's face up gently with his thumb until they were looking at each other, a gaze that seemed to freeze the pair of them, both at a loss for words for a minute or so until Malik remembered what he had been planning on saying.

He moved his face closer to Ryou, not close enough to feel the warmth of his breath upon his cheek, not yet, but close enough for intimacy.

Ryou stared up at him still, embarrassed but slightly defiant. He wasn't going to be the first to break eye contact, and they both knew it.

Malik smiled at him, one side of his mouth curling up in amusement and affection.

"Why didn't you tell me that earlier?"

Ryou blinked, just once, in surprise, before their lips met, just for a moment, before Malik pulled back, only slightly, to gauge the reaction.

Ryou stared up at him, his mouth open in shock, before grinning. He took hold of the back of Malik's neck, pulling him down into a soft kiss. Malik wrapped his arms around Ryou's waist, pulling him, as close as he'd wanted to do for some time, banishing the final vestige of chill from each others bodies.

They lay together that night, skin touching, close despite the sticky heat, and sleep came quickly and brought peaceful respite. When Ryou twitched in his sleep, his fingers skimmed the brown skin along the others waist; when Malik sighed, it ruffled the top of Ryou's hair.

When, the next morning, Marik and Bakura marched in (they'd tried knocking, just the once but when no reply came Bakura simply picked the lock) they were met by a sight they hadn't quite expected to see so soon. The pair were interwoven under the thin white sheets, the quilt thrown onto the floor. Their hair was messy and their faces flushed, and they were still sleeping the same position they had dozed off in, Ryou with his face pressed into Malik's chest, Malik with his head resting on white hair. Their arms were wrapped around each other, and their legs tangled.

Bakura couldn't help but let a small smile tug at the corner of his lips as he looked at the pair, who looked so much like he and his own lover.

Just a bit cuter.

The pair tip-toed out, deciding not to wake them up just yet. After all, the free breakfast that came with the rooms was not to be missed out on.

It was another hour or so before Malik awoke, and he gently shook Ryou out of slumber. Ryou mumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes with a fist.

"Wakey-wakey, Ryou."

Malik kissed his forehead and combed Ryou's hair out of the boys face with his fingers. Ryou smiled sleepily up at Malik, his eyes dim with fatigue but happy, and the pair decided they were alive about forty minutes later, after both had showered, stretched the stiffness out of their bones and drunk a caffeinate of coffee from room service between them.

They walked out of their room and straight into Bakura and Marik, who had come searching for them.

Marik smirked at the pair.

"Have fun last night?"

The pair glanced quickly at each other before blushing red.

"No need to be coy, we know already. We came to find you two, and you looked very sweet together, I must say."

Bakura snorted, stared at Malik with something that was similar to disproval, but wasn't quite, who stared back, neither seeming willing to back down.

Marik looped an arm through Bakura's, speaking in a voice that was barely above a whisper, so only he could hear it.

"Don't get like that, Bakura. You can talk to him later."

Bakura turned in surprise to his partner, then nodded and allowed Marik to drag him down the corridor to a taxi that, Marik informed them, was waiting to take them to where ever they chose to go.

Ryou smiled shyly at Malik, who smiled back and took Ryou's hand in his, and they walked down to the taxi, following the couple ahead of them who were so similar and yet so very, _very _different.

They spent the day in the heated Egyptian sunshine, and even Bakura's unexplained annoyance dissipated as they took a camel ride across the desert sands. He closed his eyes, feeling the sun on his face, tasting the dust in his mouth, and he could be back in the day of his tomb-robbing, the pharaoh, the gods of old, the culture he'd been born into.

'_Yeah, it could be that time. But with a couple of very welcome difference,'_ he thought, smiling across at Marik, who looked decidedly uncomfortable on the camel, used as he was to his bike.

He closed his eyes again, falling into the rhythm of the camel, feeling inexplicably happy all of a sudden.

Marik and Ryou were highly amused by the excitement of the two Egyptians to be home, finding themselves swept up by their happiness as they saw the pyramids, all of which, Bakura had informed them smugly, would have been easy to rob, and the visited the Sphinx. Bakura was delighted, in the huge Egyptian museum, to find a jade necklace that he himself had taken from a tomb and sold on, although how it had found its way back to the museum was a mystery in itself.

They fell into their beds that night after a quick meal, cursing how tired constant travelling made them, and woke early, with the sunrise. They sat out on the veranda as the sun started to warm the air, the four of them talking in a rare show of camaraderie. Bakura and Malik were so glad to be home that they were in a permanent good mood, and it rubbed off on Marik and Ryou still.

They spent a long time in the bizarre, the massive, partially covered flea market in the city, all of them bartering, Bakura and Marik always seemed to be able to beat down the prices to next to nothing, although this might have had something to do with the slightly insane glint in their eyes as the yamis starting arguing.

If you consider the method of terrifying shopkeepers you are bartering with barbaric, you should have seen what Ryou and Malik were doing to get discounts.

Whenever they started bartering, they'd simply open their eyes wide and smile cutely until the shopkeeper started stuttering and backed down completely. One unfortunate man was on the receiving end of Ryou's bartering, and he just gave in, shoving the spices at Ryou with a blush, as a gift.

After the bizarre they found themselves in a small papyrus shop, where people made and painted papyrus in the traditional way with home-made paints for tourists. Ryou watched a little old man whose face had wrinkled so much it looked like his skin was folded in on itself. He held a thin brush between his long, arthritic hands, and drew picture for a young couple watching. He drew the woman's name in hieroglyphics on one side, and the man's on the other, both drawn in cartouches. Between the cartouches was a beautifully drawn tree, with large spreading branches and a broad trunk. There were four birds drawn on the tree in an order. There was a small bird, representing childhood, a bigger one in brighter colours showing young adult, then a bird with spread wings to portray full adulthood, middle-age. The final bird had a proud plume, representing old age.

Ryou was entranced by the skill the old man had when it came to drawing: he followed each line with eager eyes until Bakura eventually dragged him away.

After that, Malik bought them tickets on a Nile cruse ship. As he had promised, there was a cooler breeze on the river, and they stood out on deck watching the city slide past feeling very relaxed.

The relaxed atmosphere vanished, however, once it emerged that they would be having a meal with Malik's siblings again that night. Thankfully, the yamis managed to behave through the evening, even going to far as to prompt a small smile from Isis as they said goodbye.

During the diner, Malik made an announcement. Nothing loud, he didn't stand up or propose a toast. He simply took Ryou's hand under the table, and stared levelly at his siblings.

"I have something to tell you. Me and Ryou… we're, well…"

She cut him off.

"It is okay, Malik. We guessed."

She smiled.

"And we're very happy about it."

He glanced over at Odeon, who nodded at him, a small smile on his face, and with his siblings acceptance, even approval, he squeezed Ryou's hand and kissed his cheek, making the other blush profusely.

It was late that night that they boarded the plane after saying farewell to Isis and Odeon, who came to see them off at the airport. The yamis, needless to say, were glad to see the back of Malik's sister, although they had decided that his brother maybe wasn't all that bad.

Bakura and Marik had decided this after Odeon had come up to them both whilst Isis had been hugging Malik in tears at departures. He had placed a hand on both of their shoulders, and thanked them for taking care of his younger brother.

He had said it with such sincerity and gratitude that for once Bakura had been unable to come up with a witty comeback.

xxxx

_Gah. So fluffy, it makes my brain ache. I'm happy I worked the Nile cruise in: I went on one when I was there, and it was lovely. Actually, I was reading through my previous chapters, and I realised I've pretty much done everything they've done. Just, you know, slightly less crazily. Good times. Oh well. There is Cairo for you. We're staying in Africa for the next chapter: only three more to go. Thanks to all the people who have clicked on recently: had a sudden rush of favs and alerts since the last chapter went up, so kudos to you all. Review? _


	13. Chapter Twelve: Kenya

You know what? Feckin' HUGE yell out to mystralwind. I've abandoned her recently, and her reviews are so bloody loyal it makes me smile every time. This one is for you.

Chapter Twelve

Kenya

Safaris, unexpected allies, and the love a God Card

As they pulled into the front drive of the Devlin Game Lodge, Ryou shot the driver a sympathetic and apologetic look. The prospect of going on safari had excited the group, perhaps too much, and they had been very loud on the shuttle bus over. That, the driver had been used to, but the subject of conversation had disturbed the driver too much. So much, in fact, that the author is unable to write it into this chapter, as it would raise the rating of the entire story, and she's too lazy to do that. They were unusually active for half five in the morning, but the unusual sleeping patterns they'd been through explained that.

The lodge itself was large and attractive, with a covered veranda and shutters painted a mossy green colour. A man was walking quickly over to the four, waving cheerfully at them. He turned out to be the manager of the lodge, and he was quick to inform them that as they were here early they could be fitted on a safari that day, as long as they were willing to share with some other guests.

"That would be great, thanks," Ryou replied before the others could protest. "Where do you want us to go?"

Despite Malik's reservations at car-pooling with two 'normal' people- who would, no doubt, not understand the unusual temperament of Bakura and Marik, he followed the group along. A safari was a nice idea, but knowing the controlled insanity- inhibited, yes, but not exactly safe- of their companions he wouldn't put it past them to decide that 'stalk the dangerous carnivore' was their new favourite game. And by god, he'd had enough of that sort of thing when Marik had decided he simply had to visit a chicken farm, and they couldn't even fight back.

They left their bags with reception, who promised to have them sent up with their rooms, and went round to the safari depot, where only one large car was left. All they others, the manager had informed them, had left already. Had they been another half hour, this one would have gone, too, and they'd have had to wait until the next day.

The car was dark green and dusty, set high of the ground on the large wheels that the Jeep-esque frame sat upon. The cab had only one seat, and was small with conventional metal sides, but the back had open sides and a metal back, with two rows of seats, each with quite low backs, four on each row. There was a tarpaulin roof over these seats, and the sides were open above waist high metal barriers. The driver sat on his seat, his feet stretched out, his cap pulled low over his eyes as he dozed. The manager whistled, and he snapped to attention, waking up and nodding at the four.

He jumped out and pulled down a set of aluminium steps that folded down, smiling and gesturing that they should take their seats.

"It's great to see you all, guys, and I hope you have a great time! My name is Dave, and I'll be your tour guide here today! Just ask me anything you want- I came over here as a student seventeen years ago, and I never left!"

Bakura grimaced. He didn't like Dave already.

He jumped up the steps without acknowledgement to Dave, and flopped down on the back row of seats. Marik followed him, nearly falling on top of him, and after a little play fighting they managed to both be in a comfortable seat, taking over the four seats.

Ryou took pity on Dave, and gave him a smile.

"Don't mind them, they're just tired."

"Oh, don't worry! I'm used to it! Just make sure they put on their seatbelts- we wouldn't want any accidents!"

Ryou's smile slipped a notch, and he nodded, and got on, taking a seat in the row in front, Malik close behind. He let the blond have the window seat, simply because he knew the other guests would have to sit next to them, and he was better at talking than Malik.

"Alright guys, you just get settled and I'll go find the others, okay?"

Dave wandered away, and Bakura growled under his breath, his eyes flickering open briefly.

When, five minutes later, Dave brought back the other two guests, Bakura and Marik had drifted to sleep, and Ryou had pulled Malik's arm around his shoulders so he could rest against his chest comfortably. The blond was staring out the glass-less window, other arm resting on the metal barrier, casting little glances down at the dozing Ryou every so often. He was the only one who looked at the pair when they entered the truck, shaken out of his daze by the clank of the stairs folding back up and the door being slid back into place.

One was taller than the other, and she had a wide grin on her face of excitement already. She had long, brown curly hair and wide eyes, and her brightly coloured tights stood out charmingly against her black skirt. She mimed silence, and pushed the other girl forward to take the seat next to Ryou. The other was blonde, with a large mans shirt coming down to nearly her knees over her cropped jeans. She had a large book under her arm, and she quirked her eyebrows in greeting at Malik before carefully taking the seat, making sure not to wake Ryou.

She needed have bothered, because he sat up with a jolt once the engine start, jostling both blondes on each side.

"Oh! I am sorry, the engine made me jump. Have we set off?"

The blonde smiled cautiously at him, but the brunette answered.

"Uhuh. Are those two behind us with you two as well?"

"Yeah. I'm Ryou, by the way, and this is Malik."

This time the blonde answered, her voice clipped and faintly amused.

"Charlotte. The giddy one next to me is Melissa. You'll have to excuse her, she's a bit excited."

"Don't worry, we're used to-"

He was cut off by Dave's voice ringing out loudly from in front.

"Okay guys and gals, we've got about an hour and a half in this before we get into the reserve proper, but I'll give you all a holler if we see anything before then! Any questions?"

Charlotte's eyebrow twitched again, a compulsive mockery.

"Yes, I've got one. Have you got a map I could look at? I like to know where we are going."

"Sure thing, little lady! Have a look in the compartment in front of you- there should be a route guide in there. But I see you've got an awful big book with you- wont that take you a fair few days to read? You should get started soon."

Charlotte rolled her eyes and pulled out the map, scanning it quickly before turning and whispering to her friend.

"I'd be quite happy to clobber his brains out with the book if he calls me 'little lady' again."

Melissa laughed loudly.

"I love how angry you are!"

Charlotte reached into her bag and pulled out her iPod, handing it to the other with a grin, and started reading. Ryou slowly slipped back to sleep, back on his original resting place on Malik, leaving the human-cushion to watch the interior and exterior of the car. The landscape was as he expected, dry and arid and flat. The only life he could see were a few birds wheeling around in the washed out sky, and the few clouds lay thinly in the distance, lying low on the horizon. They were coloured pink and orange by the sunrise, which was just rising over the land. He hugged Ryou closer to himself and rested his chin on top of his white hair, watching the other two girls instead.

Melissa had her headphones in, head bopping along to the music, mouthing the words. He could just hear the strains of some kind of rap or r n' b music, and judging by Charlotte's playfully annoyed glare their musical differences was something they often argued about in jest. Charlotte herself, he was startled to notice, had already got about seventy pages into the book in the last twenty minutes. Her intent frown gave away her interest.

A cursory glance behind him noted that the other two were still sleeping, and, peace having been confirmed, Malik decided to take a nap himself.

Melissa noticed that the bus was asleep about fifteen minutes later, and she nudged Charlotte, pointed at the pair.

"So, what do you think of them?"

Melissa shrugged.

"They seem alright. The white haired one is cute, but they're obviously very gay."

Charlotte nodded.

"But have you noticed the pair behind us? They're spikier doubles of these. D'you reckon they might be twins?"

"Don't know. You think about it too much. Now shut up and let me listen."

_About forty minutes later_

"Hey there everybody! How are we feeling up back?"

This loud, raucous yell was probably not the best thing to do where a sleeping Marik was concerned. He sat bolt upright, tipping Bakura off him, and glared down the cab. Ryou also sat up quickly, head-butting the under-side of Malik's chin in the process. Between the groans Melissa's bitching was clearly audible- she simply didn't care.

Charlotte turned a page in her book, now nearly three hundred through it.

Bakura stood and stretched, completely ignoring the cheerful:

"Hey there, put your seatbelt back on mate! We wouldn't want any accidents!"

He swung himself round to the row of seats in front stopping short when he saw the two girls. His eyes narrowed.

"Who're you?"

"We're on safari with you, duh."

"I'm Charlotte, this is Melissa."

Marik stared at her, before breaking into a huge grin.

"She's blonde, Malik! Blonde like us!"

With that he propelled himself into a flying hug, landing on both Melissa and Charlotte, ruffling her hair childishly, his smile cracked right across his face.

She raised one eyebrow sarcastically.

"Well, thank you for noticing. You are so very observant."

Bakura grabbed Marik by the shirt and hauled him back up, much to the others protests. The two girls also stood, shaking out the cramps in their legs that had settled in from the long journey, and soon all six of them were standing, before a friendly shout was heard.

"Hey there! I see zebras!"

He stopped the car and the six ran to the edge of the van, peering out in the direction Dave was pointing. A herd of zebras were moving in their direction, their bright stripes standing out against the yellow landscape. Charlotte whipped out a pair of binoculars from her bag and handed them to Melissa, who rammed them against her face in excitement.

"Oooh! They're so pretty!"

Marik was staring, open mouthed.

"They can't be real! No way?"

Ryou stuffed a laugh back into his mouth and squeezed Malik's hand. When no response came, he looked up at the blond- only to see his mouth hanging open, his eyes sparkling with joy. Charlotte was watching him with amusement, trying hard not to laugh. She nudged Melissa, who turned to him and regarded him with glee.

"How happy are you?"

He turned, looking first at Ryou, then at her, then back again with undisguised pleasure.

"They're… they're… so… wow. Are they really that colour?"

Charlotte looked at him quizzically.

"You've never seen a zebra before?"

"Well, I had a different kind of childhood."

Marik smirked.

"Yeah. If you class a childhood as living in hole, then trying to take over the world when you hit puberty and find a magical object and a life-long friend who killed your evil father for you."

Charlotte blinked.

"Well, whatever makes you happy."

They watched the herd wander off in the early morning sunlight, and they felt in a relative trance of peace before Dave spoke up again.

"Hey friends! Remember what I said about accidents! Let's all sit down whilst I set off again!"

Marik's eyes narrowed, and he turned to his new blonde friend.

"May I?"

Without waiting for an answer, her took the hardback tome from the girls unresisting hands and walked up to Dave.

"I'll give you accidents!"

He hit him over the head with the book, bringing it down with devastating force and a deafening crack. Dave wavered, his eyes glazed, before he fell forward, knocked unconscious.

Marik turned back to them with a grin.

"Ooops."

They stared at him for a moment before Melissa and Bakura broke out in hysterical laughter. Ryou and Charlotte stared at each other in ill-disguised horror.

"Why the hell did you do that?"

"Why the hell are you laughing so much?"

Melissa, Bakura and Marik didn't even have the gall to look ashamed, but they did exchange glances of irritation.

"Double the nagging?"

"Malik! Make them stop!"

Malik, who had already thrown himself back on his chair, put his hands up, as if to ward them off.

"Whoa, whoa. I'm staying out of this one."

"What?"

"I mean, of course I'm on your side Ryou, but I don't want to get drawn into an argument. I know you hate it when I get angry."

"Arse-kisser," Marik muttered.

Charlotte folded her arms, shaking her head.

"Listen, what are we going to do now?"

Ryou turned to her, one hand on his chin thoughtfully.

"Well, we know where we are going, right? We have a map, and an unconscious tour guide. I'm good with maps, and Marik is a surprisingly good driver, so I guess we're just going to have to drive ourselves back."

Marik had already pulled Dave from his seat and was dragging him to the back of the van, where he lay him behind the seats, head out in the aisle so they could check his consciousness easily. When he heard Ryou's idea, he threw himself in the driving seat with a whoop and started the engine.

"Screw that! Devlin is paying for a safari, and a safari we will have!"

Ryou shook his head, but sat down next to Malik.

"I give up."

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Oh, loosen up Charles. Put down that book and have some fun."

Charlotte rolled her eyes at her friend.

"Fine, fine. I'm getting to old for this."

In the next half hour they spotted giraffes, which they stopped to watch. The animal-inexperience were in awe at their long necks and graceful walk, and even those who had seen them were impressed with them. They stopped again to watch a herd of antelope from a distance, but the first big thing they came across wasn't until an hour later, at around nine in the morning.

"Look at that!"

"It's huge!"

They were staring at a group of elephants, six of them standing around a shallow pool. Their large ears were waving gently, and the sheer bulk of them made the group stop and stare. A bull turned around at the sound of them, even though they were a distance away- Charlotte had made sure of that. Marik's mouth dropped open at the sight of the long trunk and tusks.

"Wow. I thought you guys were lying when you told me about this."

Charlotte laughed at him, the first sign so far that she knew how to have fun. Marik glanced at her.

"I'm taking that as you've finally warmed to our eclectic personalities. Good, because I'm going to do something that will make you hate us."

With that ambiguous comment, he propelled himself over the edge of the van, and started at a trot over to the elephants. The bull watched him wearily, taking a step backward. Ryou was staring at him in shock at his stupidity, but when Bakura whooped his encouragement, he was snapped out of his reverie.

"Marik! Get the hell back here now!"

Marik turned back to them, obviously confused.

"What?"

"Get back here!"

By this point, Charlotte had already jumped into the drivers seat and started the engine up. The bull elephant trumpeted, and the others started to back off. However, the bull lowered his head a little, and took a decisive step forward. Malik noticed this.

"He's going to charge!"

"Shit!"

With that final word of eloquence, Marik turned back to the van and sprinted back. As soon as he was in Charlotte drove off quickly, Melissa and Bakura laughing hysterically at the flummoxed Marik.

"Well, how the hell was I to know that they'd charge?"

"You idiot!"

"Shut up! I bet that you couldn't do anything as cool."

Melissa and Bakura exchanged glances. They were lucky that Charlotte was driving, because if she'd have noticed that look in her friend's eyes, she would have had to incapacitated her, which would really have put a downer on the safari.

Bakura smirked.

"Bet you I can race a lion and win."

"No way, cause you'd have to beat me first."

"Oh, you're on girl."

Ryou sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"You're both idiots. It's cheetahs that are fast, and we're not going to find any of those, not if I can help it. Marik, take the wheel again. You took out the driver, so don't make that poor girl pay the price."

Bakura and Melissa exchanged a glance as Marik, grumbling, went to take the wheel again.

"Cheetahs, huh?"

"So it seems."

"Lions have lost a bit of their appeal now."

"Know what you mean."

Malik poked Ryou gently in the side, nuzzling his neck as he did so.

"Let me up? My leg is cramping, I need to walk it off."

Ryou put his feet up on the chairs as the blonde squeezed past, but put them back down as Charlotte came back to regain her seat. She smiled at Ryou as she pulled a hip flask from her bag and took a swig.

"So, you have a crazy friend too?"

he wasn't unnerved by her actions: after spending so much time with the three he did, a little alcohol abuse was nothing.

"Ah, I've got two. And a boyfriend that's partially mad. I don't really know about him."

"Wow, you've got it bad."

"Tell me about it."

"It's a pain, isn't it?"

Malik glanced down at Dave, then around at the rest of the van. Marik was focused on the road, and Bakura and Mel had started playing some sort of gambling game. Ryou was involved in a conversation with Charlotte. No one was paying attention to him. Good. He looked back down at the tour guide, who was slowly becoming conscious again. Luckily no one had noticed yet. He found the pressure point in Dave's neck and pressed it gently, until his eyes flickered shut again and his fingers stopped twitching. Perfect. That would give them a good few hours of silence.

He glanced back at his companions. Even though he was supposed to be a hikari, it was much more fun this way.

He started methodically searching the rucksacks in the back, seeing if there was anything useful. In one was obviously the picnic lunch provided by the lodge, and as they were 'guests' of Devlin personally it was particularly lavish. In another there was a medical kit, a stun gun and a machete. These he hid immediately under the seats: he did not want Bakura getting hold of those. Under the chairs he found a cool box full of large bottles of water.

He was smirking as he took his seat back. Job well done.

Their safari lasted much longer than it was supposed to, because Marik insisted on stopping for two hours for a lazy picnic because he wanted a break from driving and because each time they decided to turn back they saw another amazing animal and decided that it couldn't hurt to drive for just another half hour to see if there was anything else in the immediate vicinity. They were out much longer than all the other vans, and when they finally got back at close to six in the evening the manager was going spare with panic, especially because Dave hadn't been answering the internal radio.

It was up to Ryou to explain the situation.

"Well. What happened was my bag fell from the overhead storage and knocked him out. It totally wasn't his fault. In fact, since he was such a good guide and had explained the map to us, you should give him a raise. If it wasn't for him, they we probably would never have got back."

Okay, he admitted it. He felt bad.

They went back to their rooms and showered, but on their way down to the restaurant they met Charlotte and Melissa again, and decided to share a table. Charlotte was in, Ryou was amused to notice, what was an even bigger mans shirt, with a waistcoat over the top. He wondered to himself if she ever wore anything else.

They ordered drinks first. After the day they'd had, they figured they'd deserve it. A bottle of wine for Bakura and Ryou, beers for Marik and Malik, vodka and fruit juice for Melissa, and a triple whiskey for Charlotte, who quickly swallowed it and ordered another. Melissa grinned at this.

"Yes! Charlotte's going to get drunk! She'll be fun!"

They got progressively drunker as the night progressed, Ryou and Melissa getting their first, both being lightweights. Melissa suddenly found everything much more funny, and became even more talkative. Malik ordered himself another beer just as he felt Ryou's hand move slowly up his thigh. He gulped. Apparently Ryou got a little more… friendly after a few wines.

They got on to a drunkenly hilarious conversation about the animals they had seen that day, about which were the best. It was cut up with Marik slapping his hand on the table and delivering what he probably thought was a winning line.

"The God card Ra is the best animal there is."

"Marik, you do know that it's not an animal, right?"

"It's god. It can be anything."

Charlotte, being the most seasoned drinker, second only to Bakura (and he had a couple of thousands worth of years as an advantage) was still slightly sober, despite the amount of spirits she'd consumed.

"How is a playing card a god or an animal?"

"Sacrilege! You are a non-believer!"

This, however, just sent the group into hysterics that were only broken by the arrival of more drinks. It wasn't for another couple of hours that Melissa asked an important question, and in those hours there had been even more good conversation, laughter and, of course, alcohol.

"So, where are you guys off to next?"

Ryou, Malik and Bakura glanced at each other before Ryou shrugged.

"Well, actually…"

"They don't know."

They turned to Marik, who had given up trying to balance an empty whiskey tumbler on his head and was now instead trying to keep a spoon on his nose.

"What, seriously?"

"Uhuh. They left me in charge, and I made the plans for where we go. They don't know what is in store for them."

"Really? Have you got some amazing things left?"

"Actually, no. Ryou wouldn't let us come away for too long."

"Why, how long have you been away?"

"Like, three, four weeks? Don't really remember. We're heading home soon though."

"Really? That's a pity. Where are you going next?"

As his travelling companions turned to watch him in curiosity, Marik smirked and plucked the spoon from his nose.

"We're going to Peru."

Ryou turned to him, his mouth falling open with shock and unusual profanity.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

_Yeah, Peru. You heard. Bless Marik and his twisted sense of direction. Review?_


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Peru

_Thanks to ApplePsyche, AnimeLoverAngel, Silenced Shadows, mystralwind (as ever), Zira's Vengeance and Jibakurei (especially you- you've reviewed this many times and I don't think I've thanked you for it yet). Without your reviews last chapter, I don't think I could have brought myself to write another one, even if it is really, really late. _

Chapter Thirteen

Peru

Flora, Fauna and the Plans of a Demented Mastermind

Ryou sat on his plane seat, head in hands. Malik, beside him, was staring worriedly down at the other, slightly nervous about the fact that Ryou had not said a single word since take off, over four hours ago. He'd just sat there, massaging his temples, staring at his lap, frowning. Marik and Bakura, completely unaware of his annoyance, were asleep in the obscene double bed in the next room along the plane, leaving Malik alone in a very uncomfortable situation.

It wasn't that he couldn't talk to Ryou, it was just that he had little grasp on the fine art of conversation, and when it comes down to trying to talk to people, you are at a bit of a disadvantage when you grew up underground surrounded by three members of your family, one of whom you later killed and the other… well, the other was a girl. Who knew what the hell they were thinking, anyway?

And what did he do when he finally left the hole? He surrounded himself with mindless slaves and didn't work at all at improving social conduct, just tried to take over the world.

As you do.

So now, as a result of his 'special' life thus far, he had no clue how to broach the subject with Ryou. Instead, he just sat next to him, one hand on the others leg, continuing his awkward silence.

Ryou himself was simply exasperated.

Honestly and truly exasperated.

Why in the name of idiocy had he allowed Marik to organise the trip? Why had he not done it? Surely it would have made so much more sense to come here after going to Las Vegas, then on to Kenya after that, instead of doubling back over themselves and end up doing double the flight time. The logic of it was inexplicable, but then again, Marik did not have much of a grasp on modern Geography. On Geography in general, come to that. He knew this whole annoyance was simply the result of tiredness and the now-overused excuse of jet lag, but it was aggravating, goddamn it!

He sighed, and made his first movement in hours. He leant on the silently sympathetic Malik and linked their fingers together, closing his eyes. The blonde rubbed the pad of his thumb across the top of Ryou's hand, gently, as if scared it would break, and exercised his soporific speaking skills.

"Are you okay?"

Despite the fact that this question was entirely mundane and unoriginal, Ryou smiled and replied without opening his eyes.

"Uhuh. But I've decided that if we're going to Peru, we're doing it my way, because I've always wanted to go, and come hell or high water, I'm going to do what I want."

Malik blinked.

Oh crap.

--

_26 hours later_

_5:30 am local time_

_Lima, Peru_

Ryou smiled benignly at the group huddled in the airport terminal, all of whom looked surprisingly awake but more than a little disgruntled at being dragged back to the airport. Surely the point of going there was to look at Peru, not leave just after they get there? Not after a fourteen hour flight followed by crashing for twelve hours straight, due to crossing several time zones all at once.

His bad mood evaporated, Ryou was waving a bright blue book in front of their uncomprehending eyes. On the front read two things that Bakura could have sworn were words, but didn't seem to make any sense to him.

'Machu Picchu'

"What?"

Ryou rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"We're going on a crash tour of Peru. I've decided, and you're not getting out of it, no matter how much you argue and bicker and try and drug the pilot. We'll start in Machu Picchu, 'cause I want to go there the most and I know you'll get bored and make me stop before I finish. We need to fly there though, as it's in the Urubamba Valley."

They stared at him, glassy eyed, obviously not knowing at all what he was talking about, and he sighed.

"It's in the Andes."

Again, a confused silence.

"It's a valley in a huge set of mountains."

Bakura glanced at Marik.

"I _knew_ that."

The pilot called them over at the gate and Ryou hurriedly explained that they would have to take a short flight before catching a train- which was why they had to get a five o'clock flight. Apparently, he wanted a nice long day of looking at some kind of ancient ruins.

Bakura rolled his eyes.

They flew off to Cuzco in a relatively quite state, all of them too lethargic to cause too much havoc. Ryou and Malik, Bakura was disgusted to notice, were still acting as horribly couple-y and affectionate as ever, and it was getting nausea inducing. He pulled Marik's hair as a vent for his annoyance at the serenity of the front two seats and Marik let him, ignoring it. His hair routinely got caught in bushes, trees and small animals- what was a Bakura on top of that?

They landed at Cuzco and made the trek to the station to board the Andes train- if any of them were curious about how quickly Ryou had made such arrangements, they didn't ask, because as far as they were concerned, Ryou's organisational skills were paramount to godly, and who questions something as awesome as that? The train, they were annoyed to find out, was packed with tourists and many of that certain breed of tourists that hate to be called tourists and instead like to be named 'travellers'.

Pretentious bastards.

When they (eventually) reached Machu Picchu, even Marik was stunned to silence. Situated on a mountain top, the views were incredible. The ruins stretched out in front of them, and Ryou stared, glassy eyed, in joy. At least, until Bakura spoke.

"So what was so awesome about the Incans, anyway?"

Malik scratched his head.

"Didn't they have live sacrifices?"

Ryou sighed.

"Yeah. They thought it was an honour to die for their gods."

"That's… fucked up."

"Show some respect for their religion!"

"No, seriously. Messed up."

"Oh, and the pyramids were so much better?"

"Hey, at least ours looked cool."

"Cooler than this?"

Marik grinned.

"It's called nationalist pride, Ryou. You're never going to beat him. Give up."

"Look, I've said it once and I'll say it again- the Egyptians were the superior ancient race."

"You're a little biased."

"Just because we owned?"

"You didn't own. You just owned a lot of slaves."

"That's the best kind of ownership. I'll lend you a pair of handcuffs and you'll understand."

"About those handcuffs-"

"Malik!"

"I was just saying!"

"We don't borrow off Bakura. Besides, I have my own."

Stunned into silence by Ryou's admittance for sexual deviance- when the hell he had developed a kinky streak, no one knew- Bakura and Marik wandered off. Malik was just trying very hard not to visualise Ryou tied up to a four poster bed, covered in whipped cream and- damn it. He'd visualised.

He glanced over at Ryou, who was reading his guidebook happily, wondering if anyone would notice if they snuck into one of the ruined houses for a quickie. He decided against it- they'd be screwed if it fell over on them. Later, he promised himself.

And he really would have to see about those handcuffs.

Ryou and Malik caught up with the other two further through the ancient city after a quick fumble behind a precarious stone wall, and Bakura was still bitching.

"Look, all I'm saying is that back in my day-"

"You sound like an old granddad."

"Shut it, Marik."

"_Thank you_, Ryou."

"You need to be careful, or he'll hit you with his zimmer frame."

--

_Early Evening_

They had got back to Cuzco with relative peace, and were now wandering the cities market place happily. Ryou and Malik were hand in hand, looking disgustingly happy, and Marik and Bakura took delight at throwing things at them when they thought they could get away with it. They drew level with a bird stall. Hundreds of cages covered the walls, hung from the ceiling and were stacked in front of it in a blatant display of animal cruelty that so many markets seem to have. The stall was alive with bright feathers and strange, almost eerie noises.

Marik pointed to a particular bird that was bright orange and black with a poof of feathers on its head.

"What the hell is that?"

Ryou grinned.

"It's called a 'cock-of-the-rock', and it's the national bird of Peru."

They turned to look at him, and he rolled his eyes. He knew what was coming.

"Yes, you heard me. Let's get all the penis jokes out of the way now, shall we?"

He was met with hysterical laughter, and he huffed a little.

"I mean, really. We have cockatiels, you know."

The laughter only increased, and didn't stop for a good ten minutes. To Ryou's humiliation, three people stopped and asked if everything was okay (read: if they were crazed, dangerous lunatics or not. To which Ryou did not know what to answer.)

They crashed at a bar for a couple of hours then, and watched the sun set and the market traders pack up. A man led a herd of small, llama type creatures past the bar, and Marik glared at one that had stopped next to their patio table.

"What the hell is that?"

Ryou, the ever efficient tour guide slash encyclopaedia, answered.

"It's an alpaca. They're native to Peru, and kept in herds, like llamas. They suffer from a thing called sour mouth, I think, but I can't remember what exactly it is."

Marik stared at it in suspicion.

"Is it humming?"

"Oh, yeah! They hum a lot, as well!"

"That's just fucked up. Hey! Let go you bastard!"

The alpaca clearly had not taken to Marik either, and had taken hold of his shirt in its gaping mouth. The loose lower lip hung down, slobbering, and Ryou was staring at it thoughtfully, apparently oblivious to the yells and swear words coming from Marik.

"I just can not remember what sour mouth is."

With a final wrench, Marik pulled the shirt loose, letting out a cry of success and laughing at the creature, which seemed to glare back. The man herding the alpaca looked over, and started yelling at Marik, making hand gestures.

"What's he sayi- FUCK ME. What the hell is that? What the fuck?!"

The man was shaking his head sorrowfully, and the alpaca was practically smirking in triumph.

"Oh! I remember what it is now! It's when they spit out a lump of acidic stomach content!"

Marik looked down at his shirt in despair.

"Oh that is just disgusting!"

Bakura, meanwhile, had fallen out of his chair in hysterics.

--

Malik took another long drag of his drink, before turning to his darker half, who had returned from the bathroom clean but muttering about alpacas and evil, demented devil creatures that had it in for him.

"Where are we off to next?"

Marik looked slightly awkward.

"Well, we're not leaving until the day after tomorrow, because the pilot requested a day off to visit some old friend who moved out here, but after that… well, actually, I don't know. I wasn't sure we'd get this far without Ryou going mental about missing more of his precious school. So it's up to you guys really."

Bakura spoke from his resting place on Marik's lap.

"Actually, if no one minds… I'd kind of like to go home."

--

_Another summer day  
__has come and gone away  
In Paris or Rome... __but I want to go home  
_**-Michael Buble: Home**

--

_To be honest, this was crappy and short, but I'm stressed and behind on writing, so it'll have to do, so I apologise to the new readers who get this as their first update. There will be… one more chapter. Plus an epilogue, if you can convince me : ) Luckily, the next chapter is much better planned. I hate going back, even if it is college rather than high school- this first term has been such a drag. Roll on Christmas, and the huge amount of back-logged work I have to edit and post! _

_There you go SS- I told you I'd do it soon. : )_

_Review, please? _


	15. Chapter Fourteen: Attempted Antarctica

Chapter Fourteen

Antarctica (kind of)

Penguins, Blindfolds and Blackmail

A plane flew high in the clear sky. Turbulence barely rocked its wings as the exhausted, over-paid pilot directed it towards the place that the four in the cabin considered now to be home. It was a long flight, because of Marik's stupidity in organisation, which had taken them twenty five hours so far.

In the cabin, the peace and serenity of the perfect, beautiful sky had… not infiltrated the spacious conditions. Lovely (and ostentatious) the cabin was, but after spending so many hours and days stuck in there the four had become very unimpressed with it all.

Marik was flopped out on the floor, his face a picture of boredom. Bakura had abandoned him for a chair after being groped one to many times. He was too tired to ruin the 'good' one's minds any more than they already were.

Marik sighed.

"How much longer?"

Bakura raised an eyebrow and got to his feet, clearly equally as bored.

"I'll go ask."

Ryou smiled from his position on Malik's lap, his face nestled against the blonde's shoulder.

"That was nice of him."

"He's as bored as the rest of us."

Marik grunted in agreement to Malik's unimpressed response and Ryou smiled to himself at the pair's scepticism. Bakura, with his long legs and skinny hips, with untameable hair and a smile that made people's toes curl- sometimes with fear, sometimes with lust, occasionally with both- was, unmistakably, a nice guy really, even if he was a total bastard. You just had to look really, really hard to see it. Sometimes with a microscope, but still.

Ryou, it had to be said, was something of an optimist.

"The pilot said we'd land in one more hour. It'll be three in the afternoon when we get there."

"Oh, fucking hell. Thank god for that."

Bakura stared down at the blonde lying on the floor and prodded him with his foot in the stomach. Marik stuck his tongue out in reply, and Bakura flopped down next to him, resting against his stomach. Ryou smiled at the strange courtship dance he was witnessing: two nut jobs trying to make something of themselves.

Bakura was thinking.

"If I break something, will you yell at me?"

And the spell was broken. Ryou sighed.

"Yes, especially if it kills us."

"Why would it kill us?"

"You'd fuck around with the air pressure. We'd die, trust me."

"If a wall or window broke?"

"Yes."

"So if I made a tiny hole in the wall when we land, and didn't tell anyone, the next time Devlin went up, he'd die?"

"Pretty much, yeah. But you're not allowed."

There was a long pause before a smile turned the corners of Malik's mouth upwards.

"I'm in."

"Malik!"

"What? He's a prick!"

"Hey, he's doing us a favour! He's always seemed like a nice man to me. Polite, courteous. I like him."

Silence prevailed. Marik buried his face in his hands to try and disguise his laughter as Malik's face turned red with jealousy and anger at the comment. If there was one thing Malik disliked, it was Duke Devlin, the hideously camp and impossibly handsome multi-millionaire who wanted nothing more than to bed his boyfriend.

Hey, could you blame him?

"You've got to be fucking kidding me?"

Ryou glanced around the group, eyebrow raised.

"What? _What_ did I just say?"

Malik's grip had tightened around his waist and he shifted uncomfortably in the grip.

Bakura, had he been someone else, would have laughed. Instead, he drawled a faintly amused response.

"Guys. This is Ryou. He's so naive I'm surprised he doesn't believe the moon is made of cheese. A story which I have never understood myself, whilst we're on the subject."

"Is anyone going to explain to me what's going on?"

Marik smirked.

"Ryou, Devlin wants you. As in, wants you in his bed. Presumably in multiple kinky positions, covered in chocolate. Or maybe cream. Or maybe he'd provide his own cream, you know what I me-"

Bakura cut him off with a hand pressed over his mouth, halting whatever perverted expressions that were likely to follow. Ryou, the poor untainted soul, (well, he was slightly more tainted now, after a few… events with Malik) was sitting in shock, his eyes wide and a hand pressed over his mouth.

"Are you serious?"

"Duh."

"But all this time… he's always so, so…"

"Flirtatious? Perverted? Offering to take you to bed?"

Ryou's mouth snapped shut.

"Oh. Well… I suppose when you put it like that…"

A static-y voice came on over the overhead.

"Gentlemen, we're about to start descending into Japanese airspace. If you'll take you're seats and buckle up, we should land in ten minutes. I hope you've all enjoyed your trip, and I hope never to see any of you ever again. Have a nice life!"

Fifteen minutes later found them back in the executive lounge of Domino airport, and there was a familiar and unwelcome face was standing there, one hand on hip and the other ruffling his perfectly preened hair. There was a smirk on his lips as his eyes caught sight of them, and the filth in those eyes promised only deliciously dark temptations.

"Ryou! You made it!"

A dark red flush had spread over Ryou's face at the sight of the man whose motives had just been revealed to him. There was no way he would ever be able to look at the dice-lover the same way again. Unfortunately, Devlin clearly did not feel the same way and as the group drew level with him he threw an arm around the smaller man's waist in a way that was far too friendly for Malik's liking. The blonde, jaw clenched, tapped Duke on the shoulder.

Upon becoming aware of the Egyptian, Duke let go of Ryou and promptly threw his arms around the blonde's neck, nestling his nose into the crook of his neck. Ryou felt a sudden surge of annoyance.

"So Malik, have you had a nice trip?"

"Get the hell off me, you camp bastard."

"Oh, now don't be like that. You know you love me."

Malik looked like he was about to throw up as Duke leant in close and whispered into his ear.

"I noticed how you glared at me and Ryou in Rome. Don't tell me you weren't jealous, Malik… I decided you were just as bed-able, so don't worry! You get me as well! Perhaps we could even have a threesome…"

Ryou watched in horror as his boyfriend appeared to smile back at Duke, and whispered something back in his ear. Marik winced as Bakura's vice-like grip tightened around his wrist. All of a sudden (and to Ryou's indescribable relief) Malik pulled away, a strange smile on his face.

Duke smiled winningly, hopefully.

Malik punched him in the face.

He took hold of Ryou's arm, and kissed the corner of his mouth.

"Let's leave pretty boy alone. C'mon, we can give our luggage to express delivery so we don't have to lug it around everywhere."

Duke scrambled to his feet.

"How, ho-"

"Don't say one more word, or else I'll tell everyone."

Duke promptly shut up, and the group left the airport. As they piled into a taxi, Marik regarded his hikari with a cunning smile.

"So. Ever going to tell us what it is you're blackmailing him with?"

"Nope. It's far too precious to ever share. I shall simply let everyone wonder for the rest of their lives. I hope it ruins your mind."

Ryou's hand slipped strategically further along Malik's leg. The blonde's eyes widened. When Ryou spoke it was in a promiscuous purr that made him swallow hard.

"But you'll tell me, wont you?"

"S… sure. Umm… Ryou…"

"Yes?"

"Can you… errm… take your hand off there now?"

Marik coughed loudly.

"As much as I love this show of gratuitous soft-core porn, I'm actually glad to be home."

Bakura nodded.

"And we got to visit all of these continent things that Ryou was talking about!"

There was a pause.

"Umm… Bakura? What about Antarctica?"

"What?"

"Antarctica. The continent. Its uninhabitable, so we couldn't visit it."

Bakura pouted.

"That's not fair!"

Marik interrupted.

"What's Antarctica like?"

"In Antarctica, the plant life is not very varied due to the extreme weather conditions. The flora of the continent is lichens, bryophytes, algae, and fungi in the main, although there are over 200 species of lichen and around 50 of bryophytes."

Bakura raised an eyebrow, but replied anyway.

"Really?"

"Yes, isn't it interesting? There are over seven hundred species of algae that exist, most of which are phytoplankton, too, and you can get multicoloured snow algae and diatoms in coastal regions in the summer."

"Fascinating stuff."

"I know! There are only two types of flowering plants you can find: Antarctic hair grass and Antarctic pearlwort, and-"

"Ryou. I was being sarcastic. Very, very sarcastic."

"Oh. But I know a lot about Antarctica!"

Malik glanced at him, one eyebrow raised.

"What the hell else do you know about Antarctica, aside from apparently a lot about the plants?"

"I had to do a project for school on the Japanese research station, Syowa. And I wrote a report on the flora and fauna."

"I thought you said it was uninhabitable?"

"It is, but-"

Bakura cut him off.

"Enough of the plants! Tell me about the animals, if you insist on boring me to death in your professor mode!"

"Antarctic sea life includes penguins, blue whales, orcas and fur seals. Land fauna is nearly completely invertebrate. Due to the extreme cold, the body fluids of tiny mites and midges in Antarctica contain glycerol, an antifreeze liquid that protects them from solidifying when temperatures plummet very low."

Ryou glanced at the other three who were already zoning out, shrugged, and rolled his eyes.

"All the insects are born with drugs in them that stop their blood freezing into spikes and exploding out of their veins."

_That_ got their interest.

"So if I take someone to Antarctica, they'll explode?"

Ryou rolled his eyes.

"No. And we're not going to Antarctica."

"Shit! But I wanted to do all of the continents."

Ryou sighed. He was tired, dammit, but he knew that none of them would get a moments rest until Bakura was satified.

"Right. Shut your eyes. Marik, get a blindfold out and yes, I know you'll have one on your person somewhere. You're a sexual deviant, don't even bother denying it. Get it out."

Marik did as he was bade and extracted a black, lace-trimmed blindfold out of one of his many pockets and tied it around Bakura's eyes whilst Ryou leant over and whispered into the cab drivers ear. Bakura tentavily felt the fabric before snorting in derision.

"A _plain_ blindfold, Marik? That's ranking low on your kinky scale."

"Not in front of the hikari's, Bakura."

"I was just saying! Compared to the times with the handcuffs and the black leather laces this is a little tame."

"You're scarring the hikari's, Bakura."

"Oh, like you've ever cared before."

Malik and Ryou both had their eyes squeezed shut, as if trying to black out painful and excruciating memories. Which, to their defence, they were. Oh, they really were. That was never a thing you wanted to walk in on- it had taken hours for Ryou to get the cream and other questionable stains out of the carpet (the sofa covers had gone straight into the bin. No way was he ever sitting on those again.

Marik looked curiously out of the window as they pulled into a large car park. They carefully extracted the blinded Bakura out of the cab whilst Ryou paid both the cab and the entrance fee to the…

To the Official Domino City Zoo.

Malik rubbed his eyes.

Oh dear god.

That's right. Ryou had taken them, on the final stretch of their three-week journey, upon which they had seen the sights and beauties of the entire world, to the local zoo. Ah well, as long as they would make Bakura happy. Or at least the closest thing Bakura gets to happy without Marik, chocolate and handcuffs being involved.

Ryou led them over to a large enclosure on the far side of the zoo and indicated Marik to remove the blindfold. The pen itself was half pool, half imitation rocky beach with little covering caves at regular intervals. You could see into the water through the glass sides of the pen. Bakura rubbed his eyes in a way that was surprisingly cute for a homicidal maniac and glanced around, becoming quickly enraptured by the creatures in the pen.

"What in the name of all things bizarre are those meant to be?"

They were about a metre and a half long with sleek dark grey or brown fur. They had short, broad snouts and a keen look of intelligence in their eyes that contrasted with their awkward looking flippers. One slid into the water and proved how able those deceptive flippers were as he streaked past them in a blur of smooth power and strength.

"Wow."

Bakura sounded like a little child.

"As its name suggests, the Antarctic Fur Seal is distributed in Antarctic waters. The usual food supply is krill, and each seal eats about a ton of it each year. Adult males are dark brown in colour, whereas female and young ones tend to be grey with a lighter underside. Colour patterns are highly variable, and some scientists believe that some hybridisation with Sub Antarctic Fur Seals has occurred. Pups are dark brown, nearly black at birth. About one in 1000 Antarctic fur seals are pale 'blonde' variants though, Bakura. Like us. Strangely coloured."

"Sexy is the word you're looking for."

The words came out on autopilot: Bakura had seated himself in front of the pen and remained there, spellbound by the graceful movements of the creatures. They were eventually able to move him forty minutes later, after feeding time, with the promise of an even more fascinating attraction. They took him to a second pen and lead him down a short flight of stairs into a room. The walls and ceiling were made of glass that held back clear water behind which you could sometimes make out a dark shape in the far off corners of the tank.

"What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?"

"Bakura, you sound petulant. Wait a minute."

Suddenly a strange creature torpedoed past the glass at close range.

"_Was that a swimming bird_?"

"That's right, Bakura. It's called a penguin."

"That is the coolest thing_ ever_."

A girl was looking over at them with an expression that combined severe boredom with faint interest. She was wearing the official zoo t-shirt over black jeans and huge black boots that Marik thought looked pretty kinky, considering she was in a zoo and at work- not that he knew anything about work. Or zoo's, to be honest. She had long black hair and copious amounts of jewellery and her voice did not reflect her obvious lack of enthusiasm for the job. It was so fervent you could practically hear the exclamation marks.

"Hello, I hear you're expressing an interest in the penguins. My name is Megan and I'm here to help!"

"How long did it take you to memorise that line?"

She glanced behind her. They were the only ones in the underground enclosure.

"I know, depressing, isn't it? It's far too happy here, to be honest; I'm bored off my face. If you have any lethal weapons lying around, then go for it. Either put me out of my misery or do something dangerous and fun."

"Oh, I like her already. Screw the petting zoo, can we take her home?"

"We're not taking any more people home, Bakura. Do you not remember what happened to the last one?"

"No?"

"It took me _weeks_ to get the stains out. That shirt has not been the same since."

Ryou sighed. Bakura had stopped listening as soon as another penguin had swum past the glass, enrapturing him with its skills at twisting and turning in beautiful patterns in the water. Malik was watching too, trying hard not to look as fascinated as he clearly was by the guide's explanatory talk about the strange swimming birds. Among other things.

"Oh, so you own a lot of gothic-style jewellery too? That's so awesome. I get told to take mine off, but at least they haven't found a company policy about my boots yet."

Bakura glanced at them in admiration.

"They make you look like a dominatrix… ooh! Look at that penguin swim!"

"Um, thanks, I guess. And they're lovely things, right? It was work here or in the snake house, which smells like dead mice."

Bakura perked up.

"Really? So do they keep a lot of dead animals around the place?"

Marik sidled up to Ryou and placed a hand on his shoulder before he had a chance to hear the answer to this interestingly posed question.

"Can I have a word?"

They moved to the entrance of the room, where the light shone inwards in a brightness that was slightly blinding for a moment. Marik leant against the door frame in a nonchalance that made Ryou envious and closed his eyes as he sunned himself against the rays of the sun.

"You'll take care of him, wont you?"

"What?"

"Malik. He needs someone to lean on, if you get my drift. It may not look like it, I know, but I rely on Bakura to be there. He needs that too. Just… be careful with him. He bruises more easily than he lets on."

Ryou blinked. This may have been the longest string of sentences that Marik had ever made in seriousness that did not elapse into blood, sex or alcohol. He was surprised, but also strangely touched.

"I promise. I… yeah, you don't have to worry about him."

The blonde regarded him levelly, eyes warm but calculating.

"Good."

There was a brief silence before he spoke again.

"I'm going to go ask Bakura if he will help me find a small animal we can steal. I want to know what road-kill looks like."

Ah well. The semblance of normality could only last so long before it came crashing down around Ryou's poor, over-taxed head. He watched Marik grab Bakura and the zoo attendant and drag them off, presumably to find small animals to torture. He smiled at the wink he was given by the blonde as they passed him on their way out, and turned to face the remaining occupant of the penguin enclosure.

Malik caught his eye and grinned.

"Bakura just told me that if I ever make you upset or put you in any kind of pain that isn't linked to sex he'd make me wish I were dead. And then grant my wish."

"Aw. He means well."

"Ch. I just wish he'd mean well whilst sounding less angry."

There was a brief pause.

"So, do you think we can count Antarctica now?"

"If it stops Bakura moaning, I'd count anything."

"Well, I think he'll be happy. She told him about the raw cuts of meat they throw to the carnivores- they're going to find out where the carcasses are."

"Oh dear god."

"If we leave now, we can say they have nothing to do with us."

"Deal. On the count of three, we're running."

"One… two… three!"

The pair ran across the near empty zoo, their laughter reaching close to hysteria. They ran past the place where Marik and Bakura were soon to run from with their pockets bulging suspiciously, out of the gate and through the car park to the taxi rank where they waiting in the heavy city air, the sun just setting into twilight.

They were home.

--

_Good god. It's over. I think I may have a heart attack._

_Well. Final reviews? If I get some, I may be convinced to post an epilogue that I've already written… who am I kidding? Christmas Eve epilogue for you lovely readers. There was no way I wouldn't post it. : )_

_NT-x_


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

When they had finally got back from the zoo, Bakura and Marik had excused themselves- although excused was probably too polite a word for it. What that basically meant was they started making out on a couch until they realised they'd left 'equipment' upstairs, so would have to go to bed anyway, making things a lot less awkward for the other two, who were stuck in the kitchen as you had to go through the living room to get to the stairs.

Sometimes, Ryou wondered if his eyes would start bleeding from all the trauma.

He didn't mind that much, however, because with them busy it meant that Malik could go about completely ravishing him in the kitchen. And if anyone ever tells you that you cannot get heavy leaning against the kitchen counter, Ryou is fully eager to disagree- and trust me, both Ryou and Malik's hands knew all about it.

It was when they were in this slightly chilly, but deliciously compromising place that Ryou managed to freeze everything. Malik's hands were down his pants, his mouth attached to his neck, Ryou trying to take off Malik's shirt without making him remove his mouth (no easy feat) when all of a sudden, he blurted something out.

"Did you mind what room you got?"

Malik pulled back, eyes creased in confusion.

"What?"

"Well, it is the smallest one, and you never moved into Marik's, even after he moved into Bakura's, and-"

"Is this going anywhere?"

Malik started kissing along the underside of Ryou's jaw as the other continued talking, his mind rambling in embarrassment as he tried to choke out what he was trying to convey.

"You're the only one who doesn't have a chest of drawers, or a chair, 'cause it is too small-"

"Your point?"

Malik had got to the top of the jaw now, and started to move his way down the line of his neck, one thumb stroking a collar bone, the other still in the others rapidly tightening pants.

The next thing Ryou said was spoken in a rush, all the words melted together.

"And, well, you're the only one without a double bed, and so I was wondering that if you really didn't like it then you could always share mine with me 'cause it is bigger and you need more space and-"

He started in bemusement at the finger laid across his mouth, stopping him talking. Malik was trying very hard not the laugh at the other, until Ryou took his finger in his mouth, staring right at him as he was doing it, an obvious 'punishment' for laughing.

"Are you asking me to move in with you, Ryou?"

Ryou rolled his eyes- fool, it was clearly thinking, but he could see he was nervous too. They already lived together, but by agreeing to this, they were agreeing to much more. They stared at each other for a moment before Malik realised that if their yami's had done it, and had lasted this long, then there was no reason that they couldn't either. He'd worked too hard at this to let it fall to the side now, and as if telling Ryou this, he leant closer, pressing his body tightly against the others, squeezing slightly with his concealed hand, and bit the edge of Ryou's ear before whispering into it.

"Well then, I think you'd better take me to get better acquainted with you room."

Ryou mumbled a reply around Malik's finger.

"Just my room?"

"Well, maybe your bed too. And both those wont take long, so after that, I think I'd better get to know my new roommate better too… find out all of the things that make him… tick."

They kissed again then, their bodies causing a rising heat between them both, and they fumbled their way upstairs.

And afterwards, two couples lay spent under one roof, and although they were all too tired to move, they lay together, and slept through normal hours for the first time in what seemed like ever, and in the morning the clear sky was clouded over again, but when they noticed none of them would mind, because as long as Bakura had his face in Marik's neck and Malik could keep his hand on Ryou's skin, all four of them would be happy, and not even the fact that they had left fabulous skies and incredible sights behind them could put a dampener on that.

Domino was a far cry from Egypt, and Malik knew it. He groaned as he opened his eyes and heard the steady, persistent beat of the rain on his bedroom window. He shivered, and snuggled down under the duvet.

In the room across the hall, Bakura felt similar feelings when he woke up to hear the rain. As far as he was concerned, rain could go to the shadow realm, along with alarm clocks. Unfortunately for Bakura, he hadn't quite worked out how to send rain to the shadow realm, which was probably just as well for the rest of the world. Not that he really cared that much about the rest of the world, although he did have a new-found respect for the incredible things and places he had seen.

He sat up in bed and stretched, but not for long, because he was almost immediately shivering. He dived back under the covers, finding warmth from the body next to him, who had been woken up by Bakura as he stretched. He rolled his eyes as he burrowed his face in the others neck- he had preferred it when they were on holiday and it was much warmer.

Marik wrapped an arm loosely around Bakura, and the two went slowly back to sleep, the cold banished by their body heat.

It was Ryou who got up first, as usual. There are some things that never change, no matter what else does. He was still the only one not really affected by the cold, and he always got up first to go downstairs in whatever he wore to sleep in to switch the heating on so the house was warm when the others were ready to rise up from sleep.

He was a considerate boy like that.

When questioned as to why he didn't feel the cold, he simply smiled and reminded them that he was British, therefore used to bad weather, of which they had now had first hand experience, since it was the main type of weather around in the country, and they should really stop asking silly questions and put a jumper on if it was that bad.

As the house slowly warmed up, Ryou padded back upstairs to get dressed, pulling off his over-sized tee-shirt that was emblazoned with a yellow-skinned American cartoon character. He loved the fact that no one knew where his shirts were from, and he loved how eccentric they were, and he liked the way a certain someone's eyes watched him as he took them off, too.

But back to Ryou.

Now he had changed, he went to cook breakfast.

As he walked down the corridor, he saw the door that now lead to the junk room, and turned on his heels, jogging back to his own room. He poked the bulge on the other half of his bed, and pulled back the covers to see Malik, the blondes his hair stuck up at all angles and his eyes still puffy from sleep.

He looked completely adorable.

Not that you'd tell him that.

Not many people would dare. Trying to take over the world gives you a reputation like that.

He grinned sleepily at Ryou, who kissed him good morning before pulling the covers off him ruthlessly. In retaliation to this cruel game play, Malik pulled Ryou down on top of him, holding his wrists and nuzzling his neck, threatening to bite. Ryou rolled, pulling him with him, falling off the bed with a loud thump.

Someone hit the wall in the next room along.

"Shut the fuck up!"

The pair exchanged amused glances with each other before they made their way downstairs, and chatted softly in the kitchen whilst Ryou started cooking. Soon, woken by the noise and roused by the smells coming from the kitchen, Marik and Bakura shuffled down, both of them looking tired, but better than they had the day before- they were getting over the jet lag quickly.

As breakfast was made, a temporary feeling of serenity fell across the group. Bakura had his elbows on the table and was resting his head on his hands, a sleepy look gracing his face as he daydreamed about the feeling of hot desert wind on his cheeks, something he hadn't realised he had missed. Marik was still partially asleep, leaning back on his chair with his eyes half closed, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he watched Bakura, and Malik had his hands on the back of his head absentmindedly, watching Ryou with a grin of his own, who was moving around the small kitchen with ease, singing under his breath.

"_Home, where my thought's escaping;  
Home, where my music's playing;  
Home, where my love lies waiting  
S-i-l-e-n-t-l-y for me__"_

Ryou's voice was breathy and often lapsing into humming, and every now and then he would glance over at Malik and catch his eye, making both their smiles grow.

The spell of quiet was, for once, not broken when the food was served.

The food was eaten in the normal barbaric fashion, but they were all quiet, and although just as messy as ever, Bakura and Malik refrained themselves from glaring at each other and Marik didn't decided to do something absurd that Ryou would have to spend hours cleaning up afterwards. The reason for this Ryou never understood- probably, it was the jet lag making everyone act better, but he liked to think that they simply decided to spend one morning of normality after the hectic few weeks they had had.

Ryou sighed, content.

Just another morning in the Bakura-Ishtar household.

--

__

_Authorial Comment_

_I think my subconscious had a lot to do with this story, so it should be obvious that this is a completely stupid piece of writing. __But whatever. I really hope you guys out there have enjoyed this, and I apologise for the extreme length of time it has taken for me to write it all down._

_Now._

_Thanks? They go to mystralwind and Silenced Shadows, the two who have made me feel the need to finish this story. To ambersharae, whose early reviews pushed me to writing more, to ApplePsyche for her Pratchett comment, to _Jibakurei and AnimeLoverAngel for their loyalty, to everyone that put on their favourites or reviewed this little piece of crack fic and, as always, to my delicious editor who swore that it would never be finished.

_Ciao. And a very merry Christmas to you all. :)_


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